Peinture 202 x 143 cm, 8 septembre 2019

Acrylic on canvas
79 1/2 x 56 5/16 inches (202 x 143 cm)
© 2020 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris

When I was 16, I saw a reproduction of a prehistoric cave painting of a bison from the Altamira cave in Spain. I read that this painting dated back 18,000 years; that is 180 centuries. I realized that our entire culture had only existed for 20 centuries, the Christian era for 20 centuries, the Bible for 26 centuries, and Greek art for 26 centuries. So at 16, I decided to do something brave: I went on a prehistoric dig. In fact, I’ve had my name in a museum since I was 18 years old, not for my painting but for the prehistoric objects I found. That’s how I started thinking about art. It’s fascinating to think that as soon as man came into existence, he started painting. As I said, I’ve always loved black, and I realized that, from the beginning, man went into completely dark caves to paint. They painted with black too. They could have painted with white because there were white stones all over the ground, but no, they chose to paint with black in the dark. It’s incredible, isn’t it?

—Pierre Soulages in an interview with Zoe Stillpass, Interview, May 7, 2014