There are artists whose importance is immediately visible, and others whose work reveals itself gradually, over time. Jacques Germain belongs to the latter group.

Working within the field of lyrical abstraction in post-war Paris, Germain developed a visual language defined by restraint, gestural freedom, and a precise sense of composition. Heis represented in France’s national collection, including at the Centre Pompidou, yet he remains less widely known than many of his contemporaries. Not forgotten — simply quieter.

Born in Paris in 1915, Germain began his training at the Académie Moderne, founded by Fernand Léger and Amédée Ozenfant. He continued in Germany, studying successively with Wassily Kandinsky and Josef Albers at the Bauhaus, and later with Willi Baumeister at the School of Applied Arts in Frankfurt. This early formation placed colour, composition, and movement at the centre of his practice.

His studies in Germany came to an end in 1933, as the country’s cultural institutions were being transformed under National Socialism, and he returned to France. After a long period of captivity during the Second World War, he committed himself fully to painting in 1943.

By 1947, Germain had moved decisively away from figuration. The following year, he first presented his work publicly in White and Black at the Galerie des Deux-Iles in Paris, an exhibition organised by Georges Mathieu. His subsequent work became closely associated with lyrical abstraction.

For many artists working in Paris in the years after the war, the modernist confidence in rational order had become increasingly difficult to sustain. Geometry, systems, and the belief in art’s capacity to participate in social progress no longer carried the same authority; the historical and political upheavals of the first half of the twentieth century had profoundly unsettled those premises. Rather than replace one formal system with another, artists turned to the most elemental means of image-making — gesture, mark, and material — as ways of engaging with what remained unresolved.

Lyrical abstraction emerged within this reorientation. Rather than constituting a unified movement or programme, it brought the act of making itself to the foreground: the movement of the hand, the trace left on the surface, and the material presence of ink or pigment. It opened a field of enquiry into what a work could hold without explanation, how little a mark needed in order to carry meaning, and whether a composition could remain open without losing coherence.

Although painting remained central to Germain’s mature practice, his works on paper give these concerns a particularly concentrated form.

Jacques Germain (1915–2001), Ink on Paper, signed & studio stamp

What first drew me to Germain’s works on paper was his use of black. It does not sit behind the composition or describe another form; it acts as the form itself. Against the cream paper, each mark is fully exposed. Some feel considered and deliberate; others seem to arrive in a single, rapid movement. The composition draws its energy from these changes in tempo.

The unmarked paper is equally active. It sets the distance between one gesture and the next, allowing each mark to retain its force without the composition becoming congested. Here, spontaneity is held by an exact sense of spacing and by the deliberate choice of where to stop.

Jacques Germain (1915–2001), Untitled, Ink on Paper, 1977

The pastels work differently. Where the ink works depend on the force and placement of individual marks, pastel builds through accumulation. Pigment settles into the paper and absorbs light; marks overlap, and colour gathers through repetition and variation.

The surface becomes denser without losing clarity. Denser passages are balanced by quieter intervals, and individual marks remain legible even where they overlap.

What continues to interest me is the way these works hold a space. They do not dominate a room or compete for attention. From a distance, each composition appears self-contained; closer, shifts in pressure, density, and rhythm emerge. Their restraint is not passivity, but a way of remaining present without dictating the space around them.

Germain’s work does not try to resolve the questions that shaped its time; it allows them to remain open. More than half a century later, that openness still feels rare. Serious without being severe, his work asks for attention without demanding it.

Jacques Germain (1915–2001), Untitled, Pastel on Paper & Ink on Paper, 1952

Irene Ore
Founder & Curator Cultural Habits