AB-MP1-1956-001 — Grey Forms (1956)

Technical information

Title: Grey Forms
Date: 1956
Technique: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 50.2 × 40.2 cm
Location: Location: Unknown

Biographical / historical context

In 1956, Breuillaud moves toward a more austere, more architectured orientation. After the “blue” compositions of 1955, colour is restricted and gives way to a work in values: greys, off-whites, blacks, with only a few very subdued tones.

This shift is not a radical break but a concentration. The painting organises space as an assemblage of walls, passages and volumes, where the eye moves in stages. The work becomes a mental place, built through planes rather than an identifiable landscape.

Formal / stylistic description

Grey Forms presents a composition of large rectangular panels, stacked and overlapping. A lighter central zone acts as a luminous focus, around which denser grey masses are distributed. Contrast is subtle rather than abrupt, playing through nuances and creating a soft, almost atmospheric depth.

Edges are not uniform: they sometimes dissolve, as if the planes were sliding over one another. The surface reveals rubbings and reworkings, suggesting a progressive construction. The whole combines stability (verticals, broad flats) and mobility (shifts, superimpositions).

Comparative analysis / related works

This canvas lies at the heart of a set of researches where architecture is less a subject than a compositional logic. Compared with the works of 1955, colour ceases to be the principal motor; it becomes a support for values. This economy strengthens the sensation of structure.

Grey Forms can be related to The Walls (1956) and Blazing Evening (1956) through the same desire to organise a fragmented space, almost built like a model. It also announces later, more vertical and more “mural” compositions, in which the canvas reads like a recomposed façade.

Justification of dating and attribution

The dating 1956 is consistent with the abandonment of saturated blues in favour of greys and off-whites, as well as with the structure of superimposed panels typical of this sequence.

The signature is not legible on the available reproduction; nevertheless, attribution rests on stylistic coherence with the works dated to the same period and on a recurring formal vocabulary (interlocking planes, nuanced values, progressive construction through reprises).

Provenance / exhibitions / publications

Provenance: not documented to date.

Exhibitions: not recorded.

Publications: not recorded.