Jean Miotte: Original engraving signed and numbered in pencil / Flamboyance

Jean Miotte : (1926-) is a French abstract painter, in the style known as L'Art Informel. Miotte came of artistic age in war-torn Europe in the decade after World War II, when non-figurative, gestural abstraction was emerging on both sides of the Atlantic as the dominant language in contemporary art. Seeking what has been termed art autre, artists such as Kazuo Shiraga, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Emil Schumacher, and Miotte championed the individual freedom of the artist as expressed through gestural brushstrokes and thick pools of color. As Miotte has commented, “My painting is a projection, a succession of acute moments where creation occurs in the midst of spiritual tension and as a result of inner conflicts.”Miotte’s artistic influences include performance, choreography, jazz music, and particularly ballet. He experiments in media ranging from oil to acrylic, gouache, ink, etching, lithography, and collage. Critics say he is unique among the Informels because he continues to grow, fighting repetition, questioning himself and his form of expression. In 2002, the Jean Miotte Foundation opened in New York, exhibiting a permanent collection of his works.