Jean-Michel Coulon

de Jean-Michel Coulon, Lydia Harambourg

Jean-Michel Coulon a passé sa vie à créer, dessiner et peindre dans un secret quasi-absolu. Il ne laisse personne entrer dans son atelier. A sa mort en 2014, sa famille découvre une œuvre structurée, intacte et inédite qui compte plus de 800 peintures et collages. Il nait à Bordeaux en 1920. Adolescent, il rencontre Picasso auquel il montre une représentation qu'il a fait de la Sainte-Chapelle. Le maitre, que la perspective étonne, lui demande à garder le dessin. Coulon refuse et s'enfuit en courant! C'est à 20 ans, lors d'un voyage dans les Alpes, qu'il décide de se consacrer entièrement à la peinture. D'emblée ses œuvres sont toutes abstraites. Au cours des années d'après-guerre il est introduit dans les cercles artistiques comme la seconde Ecole de Paris et devient proche de peintres tels que Nicolas de Staël, André Lanskoy et Maria Henela Vieira da Silva et Arpad Szenes. Ses débuts sont prometteurs puisqu à 29 ans il expose seul à la galerie Jeanne Bucher dont le livre d'or témoigne de la présence d'artistes qui connaitront bientôt la célébrité. Parmi eux, Rothko, Vieillard, Deyrolle ou Arnal. L'année suivante, en 1950, il participe à une exposition de groupe à New York. Ensuite il refusera presque toutes les propositions d'exposition. He was born in Bordeaux in 1920. Adolescent, he met Picasso to whom he showed a representation he made of the Sainte-Chapelle. The master, whom the prospect astonishes, asks him to keep the drawing. Coulon refuses and runs away! At the age of 20, during a trip to the Alps, he decided to devote himself entirely to painting. From the start, his works are all abstract. During the post-war years he was introduced to artistic circles as the second Ecole de Paris and became close to painters such as Nicolas de Stael, André Lanskoy and Maria Henela Vieira da Silva and Arpad Szenes. His beginnings are promising since at 29 he exhibited alone at the gallery Jeanne Bucher whose guestbook shows the presence of artists who will soon know the celebrity. Among them, Rothko, Vieillard, Deyrolle or Arnal. The following year, in 1950, he participated in a group exhibition in New York. Then he will refuse almost all the exhibition proposals. His painting evolves, especially in terms of chromatic scale, with the family events that affect it. In the same way, his work reflects the happier events of his marriage and his travels to the United States and Italy. Most of his canvases are of small size and a very refined style, vertical juxtaposition of colors the width of a flat brush. f the oil painting represents the backbone of the work of Jean-Michel Coulon, from the 2000s he will put his creativity at the service of shimmering collages in which he puts all his energy. A true creative frenzy to which oil paintings of the 50s and 60s serve as a support. This book proposes to discover the work of an artist whose work has been praised by his peers but which seemed to refuse the recognition of the general public during his lifetime.