THE SHARK AND THE GULL (plate, folio 28) from POÈMES

Nicolas de Staël was a French painter who developed a distinctive abstract language rooted in the visible world, working primarily in oil on canvas with a sculptural approach to thick, gestural paint application. Born in Russia and trained in Paris during the interwar period, he emerged as a leading figure in postwar European abstraction, creating monumental compositions that oscillated between pure abstraction and legible landscape or architectural forms. His practice was defined by an intense engagement with color relationships and the physical materiality of paint itself, applied in broad, layered passages that created a sense of depth and spatial complexity. De Staël worked until his death in 1955, leaving behind a body of work that bridged geometric abstraction and lyrical figuration.

St. Petersburg, Russia