Collage, Circa 1960

Albert Chubac  

Albert Chubac was born in 1925 in Geneva. He lost both parents at 13, raised by his grandmother and his aristocrat godfather.

Figuration Libre: In 1947, freshly graduated from the École des beaux-arts of Geneva, Albert Chubac hands in Algeria and realizes his figurative paintings on paper. Back from his trip, he meets many artists, including Nicolas de Stael, which will have a significant influence on his work. He continues his travels around the Mediterranean as far as Greece and Egypt, then determines all his work to come (color palette, pictorial references) strongly influenced by Ancient Egypt.

Abstraction and New Realism: From 1952,his spends his winters in the south of France (Aspremont), his painting is then abstract, strongly influenced by Nicolas de Staël or Hans Hartung. Few yeras later, he meets the painters Martial Raysse, Claude Gilli, Marcel Alocco, Serge III, Bernar Venet, and Ben, and from 1958, he gets closer to the spirit of New Realism (Nouveau réalisme). He creates sculptures out of wire and tin cans and all sorts of recycled materials. Slowly he follows the movement of the School of Nice (l’École de Nice) and will be the first artist of the School of Nice (l’École de Nice) to be exhibited in the USA, this happens in 1960. Will follow numerous exhibitions of the School of Nice (l’École de Nice).

Geometric Abstraction: In 1963, he devotes his work to the creation of modified structures evolving in space (buyers can interchange the elements. Shapes and colors come alive through as diverse as wood, cardboard materials, and later through plexiglas, while still maintaining the predominance of its pure colors. A retrospective dedicated to him takes place in the MAMAC of Nice in 2004. He died at the age of 88 years in Tourette-levens in the south of France.