About The Artist Michel MESSAGER "THE PAINTER OF LIGHT" Born on the 18th April 1930 in Beaumont du Gatinais, Messager is one of the rare contemporary artists to express themselves with such exact graphic method, such original composition and such frank colours. He might be spoken of as a romantic painter in the tradition of Delacroix. Messager practices paradoxical painting using the relationship between black and white, light and dark, the powerful and the delicate, the eternal and the transitory. The colour, spread with a knife, is of dazzling frankness and needs no support. It wages a plastic struggle for the victory of light, beauty, perfection and freedom. Messager provides the image of a creator wrestling with a reality which lies on the border of dreams and refuses to be grasped. His career has been strewn with awards, dating from 1959 in France and 1964 in New York. His increasing fame led to purchases of his work in 1966 by the City of Paris, an example followed by the Prefectures of the Seine et Marne, Hauts de Seine and Val de Marne districts. Neither have galleries ignored his art - the Muse'e d'art Figuratif in Fontainebleau has acquired one of his works, for example. Today, Messager appears as the leader of an informal group, and this has led to exhibitions in major private galleries. One day, he will receive worldwide recognition for his knife painting. His work carries a seal: the seal of talent. Copyright 1999 All rights reserved Concorde Fine Arts