Say It with Slabs

Despite all the current pother about the mechanics of painting, there are actually so few ways of putting color on canvas that abstractionists get grey trying to think up new tricks. Last week artists and camp followers were flocking into a Manhattan gallery to pay homage to a stranger who had succeeded, a husky Parisian named Nicolas de Stael.* Artist de Stael quickly explained that he is not so much concerned with abstraction for its own sake as with the expression of moods aroused in him by nature. Said he: "I am trying to say what I have to say with as few words as possible."

De Stael's "words" are masonry-like slabs of paint troweled on to canvas. His biggest picture weighs 250 lbs. unframed, and his smallest, something more than a gym-class dumbbell. Each colored slab fits its neighbors as snugly as a stone in a wall. A mound of squarish slabs represents a bouquet; rectangular slabs in horizontal layers stand for a seacoast. De Stael's colors are sumptuous, often set off by solid chunks of coal black which supercharge the canvas in much the same way as Rouault's heavy black outlines.

Russian-born Nicolas de Stael, 39, was orphaned when his parents, fleeing the revolution, both died in Danzig. The family nurse took him to Brussels, and a family friend offered to pay for his education. De Stael studied with an art teacher who sent him on bicycle trips all over western Europe, where he practiced by copying masterpieces in museums. His enthusiasm waxed with his skill. But he had no popular success at first, often went hungry. During World War II, he served in the Foreign Legion, went straight back to his Paris studio afterwards. Then Georges Braque befriended him, other artists dropped round to his studio, and slowly De Stael's reputation began to grow.

In Europe today, De Stael is ranked amount the most important "young" artists. Manhattan critics, pleased to have something really new to write about, troweled on the praise. "Majestic," said the Times. Said Art News: "One of the few painters to emerge from postwar Paris with something personal to say, and a way of saying it with authority." Manhattan buyers were just as complimentary in a more practical way: by week's end the show was a near sellout.

* Remotely related to 18th Century French Novelist Madame de Stael.

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