Pierre Boulez's Painterly Inspirations: From Klee to Guston

Catherine Millet explores the visual tastes of composer Pierre Boulez, whose collection was auctioned by Artcurial on June 7, 2023. Drawing on Boulez's writings and a personal conversation, Millet traces his preference for painters who approached abstraction gradually while maintaining a connection to reality. Boulez admired Paul Klee for sustaining tension between representation and abstraction, and favored early Mondrian (tree and '+' and '-' series) over his rigid geometric period. He also valued Cézanne, analytical Cubism (Picasso, Braque), and Philip Guston, whose abstraction emerged from close observation of nature. Boulez rejected both chaotic expressionism (initially Pollock) and overly codified systems, citing Klee's Bauhaus lesson where a bottle bottom breaking a stick line exemplified organic composition. His chosen painters create spaces that invite temporal exploration, requiring the viewer to navigate shifting planes and details. Boulez also mentioned Francis Bacon and Willem de Kooning, whose works involve erasure and loss. The essay originally appeared on artpress web in May 2015.