WattsOS
SF
Study for Luxembourg Scene
1960 · Oil on cardboard
13 x 16 in. (33 x 40.6 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
WATTS INDEXThe canonical database of visual culture
Jean Hélion
French, 1904
Couterne, France
PaintingCubismAbstract ArtGeometric Abstraction
Representation
None documented
9
Institutional Exhibitions
21
Works in Collection
30
Assets Indexed
4
Authority-backed Facts
0
Publications Referenced
100%
Profile Completeness
Cultural Positioning
Movements
- • Cubism
- • Abstract Art
- • Geometric Abstraction
- • Figuration
- • Constructivism
Related Artists
Influence Graph
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Selected Institutional Exhibitions
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Abstraction-Cr�ation, Art Non-Figuratif
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1977
No image
Recent Acquisitions: Kay Sage Tanguy Bequest
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1965
No image
XXVth Anniversary Exhibition: Paintings from the Museum Collection
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1954–1955
No image
The Museum Collection of Painting and Sculpture
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1945–1946
No image
New Acquisitions: Photography by Alfred Stieglitz, European and American Art
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1942–1943
About
Why this artist matters now
Jean Hélion was a French painter who moved between abstraction and figuration across his career, working primarily in oil on canvas. Initially aligned with constructivist and geometric abstraction in the 1930s, he shifted toward representational work in the postwar period, depicting urban scenes, interiors, and still lifes with a lyrical, structured approach. His paintings combine disciplined composition with a distinctive palette of muted earth tones and cool grays. Hélion remained a significant figure in mid-twentieth-century European painting, bridging the formal innovations of early modernism with a sustained engagement with the visible world.
Source: Moma Bulk 2026 05 04 · Trust score: 92% · Updated 25d ago
Graph relationships
Taste overlap and adjacency
Movement
Cubism
Medium
Painting
Related Artists
12 in graph
Institutional
Museum Collections
Canonical record
Artworks (21)
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Record
Images
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Adjacent in the graph
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Exhibited alongside
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Balthus
Exhibited alongside
Max Beckmann
Exhibited alongside
Edward Burra
Exhibited alongside
PC
Prunella Clough
Exhibited alongside
René Daniëls
Exhibited alongside
Gerrit Rietveld
Shared movement
Dana Schutz
Shared movement
Dorothy Dehner
Shared movement
Karl Schrag
Shared movement
Ewald Mataré
Shared movement
Record
Movements and affiliations
Institutional
Representation & Collections
Gallery
Gagosian
In collection
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
In collection
Cleveland Museum of Art
In collection
Art Institute of Chicago
In collection
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
In collection
Tate
In collection
Museum of Modern Art
New York, US
Network
Related Artists
Record