Tachisme

Description

Tachisme (alternative spelling: Tachism, derived from the French word tache, stain; French pronunciation: [taʃism] ⓘ) is a French style of abstract painting popular in the 1940s and 1950s. The term is said to have been first used with regard to the movement in 1951. It is often considered to be the European response and equivalent to abstract expressionism, although there are stylistic differences (American abstract expressionism tended to be more "aggressively raw" than tachisme). It was part of a larger postwar movement known as Art Informel (or Informel), which abandoned geometric abstraction in favour of a more intuitive form of expression, similar to action painting. Another name for Tachism is Abstraction lyrique (related to American Lyrical Abstraction). COBRA is also related to Tachisme, as is Japan's Gutai group. Read more ↗

Key Artists

Pierre Soulages
Leading figure of French Tachisme celebrated as 'The Painter of Black' for his monumental, gestural brushwork and thick impasto marks across luminous fields.
Jean-Paul Riopelle
Canadian-French master of Tachisme who applied dense, mosaic-like patches ('taches') of pure color directly onto large canvases using palette knives.
Wols (Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze)
Pioneering German-born artist in Paris whose spontaneous, dripping spots of ink and oil paint provided the foundational trigger for Tachisme.
Hans Hartung
Key practitioner of Tachisme whose rhythmic, calligraphic scratches and dynamic dark bundles rejected all pre-planned geometric composition.
Serge Poliakoff
Russian-French painter associated with Tachisme and the School of Paris who constructed intimate, interlocking puzzle-like planes of rich, textured color.
Camille Bryen
French poet and painter who helped organize early postwar exhibitions of Tachisme and popularized organic, spontaneous blob and stain painting techniques.

Famous Artworks

View catalog entry at tate.org.uk ↗
Perspective Vallée (Valley Perspective)
Jean-Paul Riopelle · 1953
Tate Modern, London - Oil on canvas
View catalog entry at tate.org.uk ↗
Painting, 10 February 1953
Pierre Soulages · 1953
Tate Modern / Centre Pompidou - Oil on canvas
View catalog entry at tate.org.uk ↗
The Blue Phantom
Wols · 1951
Museum of Ludwig, Cologne / Centre Pompidou - Oil on canvas
View catalog entry at tate.org.uk ↗
Composition: Gray and Red
Serge Poliakoff · 1953
Tate Modern, London - Oil on canvas
View catalog entry at tate.org.uk ↗
T1950-8
Hans Hartung · 1950
Centre Pompidou, Paris - Oil on canvas

Fun Facts

The word 'Tachisme' comes directly from the French noun 'tache', meaning stain, spot, or blotch, and was first widely popularized around 1951 by French critics Pierre Guéguen and Charles Estienne as well as curator Michel Tapié.
↗ Source: tate.org.uk
Tachisme is widely considered the direct European counterpart and response to American Abstract Expressionism, though European critics noted that Tachisme tended toward more intimate, poetic, and nuanced surfaces compared to the raw aggression of American canvases.
↗ Source: tate.org.uk

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