“He threw himself from the studio terrace, leaving the “Concert” painting unfinished.”

Kommersant FM columnist Dmitry Butkevich talks about what the artist’s childhood was like, about his works, suicide, and also about the exhibition that opened in Paris.

International experts believe that it is worth paying attention to the work of Nicolas de Staël. According to them, every 20 years his work re-emerges to the forefront of the international art scene. The Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris (MAM) has just opened an exhibition of the artist, which will run until January 2024.

The last major retrospective of his work was held at the Pompidou Center in 2003. Previously, they were shown at the Pierre Gianadda Foundation in Martigny in 1995, and even earlier at the Grand Palais in 1981. In 1955, the exhibition he was still working on at the time of his suicide toured the United States.

The current exhibition in Paris features about 200 works (paintings, drawings, engravings and notebooks), most of which have never been exhibited in France before. The exhibition is both dense and constantly changing: each of the 11 rooms represents a new period. The voluminous catalog contains interviews with people close to him. Anne de Staël, his eldest daughter, and Pierre Lecure, his trusted friend and assistant, poignantly describe the visual journey the artist embarked on.

Nicolas de Stael was born in St. Petersburg in 1914 into an old German family and spent his childhood in the Peter and Paul Fortress, of which his father was vice-governor. The revolution of 1917 forced the entire family into exile, and the child, who was supposedly destined to become the Tsar’s page, at the age of 6 found himself an orphan, first in Poland, then in Belgium. When France entered the war in 1939, he joined the Foreign Legion.

A few days before his death, he confessed to his stepson: “You know, I don’t know if I’ll live long. I think I’ve drawn enough. I achieved what I wanted.” On March 16, 1955, Nicolas de Staël threw himself from the terrace of his studio, leaving his largest painting, “The Concert,” unfinished. There is now silence against the backdrop of a black piano and a yellow double bass.