Hervé Télémaque

With 75 works in the form of paintings, drawings, collages, objects and assemblages, the retrospective devoted to Hervé Télémaque is one of the most significant ever devoted to the Haiti-born French artist. It reveals for the first time at the Centre Pompidou all the diversity and consistency of a challenging body of work with undeniable visual power. After spending three years in New York, where he became familiar with the abstract expressionism that influenced the assertive gestures of his first paintings, Télémaque settled in Paris in 1961. At this time, he became close to the Surrealist group. On canvas, he orchestrated the meeting of objects from consumer society and popular culture, which led to joyous visual short-circuits. Soon a follower of the "clear line" style, Télémaque produced paintings with a strong autobiographical element.