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1910 born 29 October, in Paris.
1929-31 École du Louvre
1937 studies at the studio of the graphic artist Paul Colin
1941 André Lhote Academy
2005 Died in Paris

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2004 In conjunction with the important donation to the state by Sybil Albers and Gottfried Honegger, opening of a new space with several galleries devoted to Aurélie Nemours at the Espace d’art concret of Mouans-Sartoux, and a retrospective at the Pompidou Center, Musée national d’Art moderne. Regional and national governments give their definitive go-ahead for the project Alignement pour le 21ème siècle, which the artist designed in the 1980s following her work on Rythme du Millimètre: seventy-two columns standing 4.5 m high in light Brittany granite, a material especially favored by the artist because of its elusive color, will be erected at the Beauregard site, near the University of Rennes.

2003 Publication of two books that bring together a range of the artist’s texts, Main ouverte/Mano abierta with silk screens by Soto, and Bleu Bleu Noir with the artist’s previously unpublished texts.

2002 Exhibition at Strasbourg’s Museum of Modern Art.

2001 The Musée de la Cohue in Vannes publishes a catalogue raisonné of the artist’s prints dating from 1946 to 2000 and mounts a show. Exhibition of pastels and collages at the Museum of Grenoble.

2000 Creates the Nemours Foundation.

1999 Exhibition at the Fine Arts Museum of Rennes.

1998 For the priory church of Notre Dame de Salagan (Alpes de Haute Provence), as part of a public commission, creates monochrome stained-glass windows in purple, “that red saturated with blue.” Retrospective at the IVAM of Valencia.

1996 The Museum of Grenoble presents “Histoires de blanc et noir, Hommage à Aurélie Nemours”.

1995 Important retrospective mounted by the Wilhelm Hack Museum in Ludwigshafen which subsequently tours Germany. The show of over one hundred works is accompanied by an in-depth and richly illustrated monograph edited by Richard Gassen and Lida von Mengden. In conjunction with FRAC Bourgogne, exhibition at the Château de Tanlay, “Henri Michaux-Aurélie Nemours.”

1994 Is awarded the Grand Prix national de Peinture.

1993 Creates Océan II, a horizontal line of 36 monochrome squares measuring 22 cm each; the piece is presented at Juxtaposition, Art 13, Grande verrière d’Austerlitz, Paris, and immediately acquired by Gottfried Honegger.

1991 The start of her Nombre et Hasard series, which she will continue to develop until 1992 and in which chance, always based on numbers, creates an open “exploded” space. Executes a public commission for Paris’s prestigious music conservatory, the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique, Cité de la Villette: To Polyèdre I (1989) she adds ten pieces from a series called Rythme du Millimètre, painted between 1976 and
1990. Oscillatoire is published by Nanga Editions, Le Guilvinec.

1990 Is named Commander of the National Order of Arts and Letters.

1989 Creates Le Long Chemin, a horizontal line stretching over 50 meters that comprises 64 square monochrome canvases in red, blue, yellow, white and black, what she calls “color instants,” for her retrospective at Reutlingen’s Stiftung für konkrete Kunst, near Stuttgart. Following the same principle, begins La Ligne (26 elements), which she will only complete in 1992; the work now hangs in Madrid’s Museo Reina Sofía.

1988 Begins working in monochrome, where she attempts to express “the Void that isn’t Nothingness.” The start of the Polychrome Monochrome, Quatuor and Colonne series. Is awarded the Camille Graeser Prize in Zurich. Contributes “Constructivisme et ondulatoire” to Mesures Arts international No. 2, Brussels.

1983 First appearance of her Structure du silence series, which is based on the alternation of black and white and the superimposition of different grids.

1982 “Symmetria,” a poem by the artist, is published, along with eleven etchings, by Fanal Editions, Basel.

1976-77 Explores the vibration of black and white and rhythm, the “origin of form,” in extremely taut works she calls Sériels, Rythme du Millimètre and Point Pluriel.
1981 Takes part in Paris-Paris, 1937-1957, at the Pompidou Center, Musée national d’Art moderne, Paris.

1975 Haïti O Erzulie, entirely designed by Aurélie Nemours, is published by Edith de la Tour. The book contains 102 photographs shot by the artist in Haiti along with a collection of traditional Haitian chants.

1974 L’Ondulatoire is published by Hoffmann Gallery Editions, Friedberg/Frankfort.

1969 Vigile, held in trust at Strasbourg’s Museum of Modern Art, is the first of her works to enter a national collection.

1965-70 The square becomes the essential format of her work. The art milieu begins to recognize the originality of her output and her contribution to the history of art construit, or constructed art.

1964 Takes part in the important show Cinquante ans de collage du Cubisme à nos jours at St. Étienne’s Musée d’art et d’industrie.

1961 First solo show abroad, at the Drian Gallery in London. Through Michel Seuphor, meets Gottfried Honegger, who will be one of her first collectors, as can be seen in the series of works conserved in the Espace d’art concret in Mouans-Sartoux.

1960 The start of her Échiquiers, Rosaces and Diptyques series, from what she will later call her “romantic
period.” Creates collages at the request of the poet Imre Pan. Takes part until 1965 in the Mesure group, whose vice-president is Jean Gorin; the group also has important ties with Germany.

1959 The start of her Au commencement series, “the taut wire” canvases, as one critic of the day puts it.

1957 Joins the group Espace, founded in 1951 by André Bloc, who was looking to unite the arts.

1953 Abandons the “overly corporal” diagonal and retains only the horizontal and the vertical. Colette Allendy gives her her first solo show in Allendy’s Paris gallery and asks Michel Seuphor to write the text for the accompanying brochure. The discovery of Mondrian, thanks to Seuphor, proves a revelation that confirms the path she had taken in painting. Travels to Haiti and gathers numerous observations about rhythm from the culture.

1950-51 Begins using pastel systematically, a medium she had worked with since 1942 for sketches done in an “empty” state, the spontaneous, intuitive and unfettered starting points for her rigorous, carefully planned paintings whose construction requires many hours. First appearance of her Demeures series, which she will continue until 1959. These large-scale austere pastels in shades of black, white and gray embody the essence of the experimentation she has pursued right up to the present.

1949 Exhibits at the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles (or New Realities Salon), where Herbin notices her work. She will regularly show at these salons until 1979.

1948 For two years is a regular at Fernand Léger’s studio, which the artist opened after his return from New York. “Fernand Léger represented a purification for me. I admired him but I didn’t want to follow him. I thought I was going to be able to wash away that ponderous disintegration of cubism: I could no longer do color or construct forms; everything was a puzzle. Léger represented an antidote.”

1946 Exhibits at the Salon d’Art Sacré (or Salon of Sacred Art). She will take part in these salons until 1979. Her interest in stained glass dates from this period.