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Henri Michaux
"To dare in all with excess, to push anything in the extreme limits."
+ Stamp
Stamp by Henri Michaux
fictional stamp
The publication of a postal stamp is often a homage paid by a nation to a place, an event, a remarkable cause or a character which count. The painters and other artists do not escape from this rule. Some are however "forgotten" of postal art. Here, gathered below (French or foreign), emitted stamps (206) or simple studies of stamp (224) in homage to the artists represented on our website. The first French stamp was emitted in 1849, England preceded us by ten years. There is often a share of voyage in this small form of shape paper. The stamp circulates, sails, flies away, it makes dream, then dream a little. M.C.
When the stamp is really emitted, the artist name is preceded of an asterisk (*). It is certain that we do not know each stamp emitted for such or such artist; do not hesitate with us to make known them!
Discover all the stamps
+ A tribute to...
See all the tribute pages...
A tribute to Henri Michaux
Sorry this section is only available in french for now.
Des suites d'un infarctus, le poète et peintre d'origine belge d'expression française - naturalisé français en 1955 - Henri Michaux est mort à l'hôpital de la Cité universitaire à Paris, dans la nuit du 18 au 19 octobre 1984, à l'âge de quatre-vingt-cinq ans. Il fut incinéré au cimetière du Père-Lachaise, en présence de quelques intimes. En son hommage, avec respect, cette pensée.
"Il n'y a pas de preuve que la puce, qui vit sur la souris, craigne le chat." - Henri Michaux
"N'apprends qu'avec réserve. Toute une vie ne suffit pas pour désapprendre ce que, naïf, soumis, tu t'es laissé mettre dans la tête – innocent ! - sans songer aux conséquences." - Henri Michaux
"Un jour j'arracherai l'ancre qui tient mon navire loin des mers." - Henri Michaux
"Je comprenais, je croyais comprendre, intérieurement et rétrospectivement, ce qui attire les foules et qui m’avait toujours paru tellement inepte." - Henri Michaux
"En ce siècle cloué au présent chacun / séparé chacun dans la grande banquise / parmi éclats tessons charpies tas tenaces / ailleurs pas d'ailleurs pas de rage non plus / crachat rentré barrage de cancers / et la corde au cou." - Bernard Noël
"Je fus transporté après ma mort, je fus transporté non dans un lieu confiné, mais dans l'immensité du vide éthérique. Loin de me laisser abattre par cette immense ouverture en tous sens à perte de vue, en ciel étoile, je me rassemblai et rassemblai tout ce que j'avais été, et ce que j'avais été sur le point d'être, et enfin tout ce que au calendrier secret de moi-même, je m'étais proposé de devenir et serrant le tout, mes qualités aussi, enfin mes vices, dernier rempart, je m'en fis caparace. / … /" - Henri Michaux
Notes of biography
Henri Michaux was born in Namur (Wallonie, Belgium) in 1899. He grew up in Brussels. He studied in a Jesuit Institut and wanted to devote his life to the religion but his father decided for him and he began studies of medicine in 1919. He gave up this way quickly and joined up the navy. He was a distressed teenager; his first literary experiments were marked by the frequentation of Tolstoï and Dostoïevski. After having read works of Lautréamont, Michaux began writing in 1922.
When he met, in Paris (1925), Paul Klee, Max Ernst and Giorgio de Chirico, he started to be interested in painting and graphic arts. Henri Michaux travelled between 1927 and 1937 (Asia, South Africa). He wrote, drew, and painted. His first exhibition was organized in Paris in 1937; his graphic production became more important than his literary production.
During all his life, Michaux will practised the watercolour as much as the drawing, the gouache, the etching and ink. With his new interest in calligraphy, the artist-writer often used it in his works. In the Fifties, Michaux tried out hallucinogens drugs, particularly mescaline. These experiments inspired his art as well as his writings. This time of creation was consecrated with an exhibition to the Gallery La Hune (Paris, 1956), then by two important exhibitions, in Brussels to the Palais des Beaux-Arts (1957) and in Frankfurt (1959).
However, he never belonged to the Surrealist movement, his art was often compared with it. Michaux‘s paintings remained always figurative, in spite of a strong tendency to abstraction. The artist intention is not to flee the world, but to increase the conscience of it. To increase the conscience of the world by the increase of its perception. Henri Michaux‘s works was exhibited in Paris with “The lyric flight, Paris, 1945-1956” presented at the Museum of Luxembourg in 2006.
Henri Michaux died in Paris in 1984, he was 85 years old.
Artists on display
The art and the artists display: proclamations, galleries, museums, personal or collective exhibitions. On walls or in shop windows, wise or rebels, posters warn, argue, show. Some were specially conceived by an artist for such or such event, other, colder, have only the letter.
Some were created in lithographic technic, most are simple offset reproductions. They are many those who like collecting these rectangles of paper, monochrome or in games of colours, in matt paper or brilliant, with many words or almost dumb.
We are happy also to be able to greet, by this pages, mythical galleries as those of Denise René, Louis Carré, Claude Bernard, Berheim Jeune, Maeght, Pierre Loeb and others.
Complete work(s)
Complete work(s)
*« Les estampes, 1948-1984 », R. M. Mason, Ed. Cabinet des Estampes du Musée d’art et d’Histoire et P. Cramer, Genève, 1997
All the complete works
Bibliographic track and more
To read about the artist :
- « H. Michaux », R. Bertelé, Poètes d'aujourd'hui, Ed. P Seghers, Paris, 1957
- « M. », R. Bréchon, coll. La Bibliothèque idéale, Ed. Gallimard, Paris, 1959
- « Henri Michaux », A. Jouffroy, coll. Le Musée de Poche, Ed. G. Fall, Paris 1961
- « Henri Michaux », coll., cat., Erker Verlag, Saint-Gall, 1973
- « Un itinéraire de l'art plastique », R. Bertel, in L'Herne, n°8, Paris, 1966, rééd. 1983
- « Henri Michaux - 50 lithographies originales », cat., Ed. Le Point Cardinal, 1984
- « Meidosems », E. R. Jackson, Ed. Moving Part Press, Santa Cruz, 1992
- « Henri Michaux - Les livres illustrés », M. Imbert, Ed. La Hune, Paris, 1993
- « Michaux inédit », E. Pernoud, in revue Nouvelles de l'Estampe, n°133, mars 1994
- « Henri Michaux », Jean-Pierre Martin, Ed. Gallimard, Paris, 2004
To read from the artist :
- « Henri Michaux - Peintures », A. Pacquement, Ed. Gallimard, Paris, 1993
- « Poteaux d’angle », Ed. Gallimard, Paris, 2004
Website :
No website dedicated to the artist.More :
+ Stamp
Stamp by Henri Michaux
fictional stamp
The publication of a postal stamp is often a homage paid by a nation to a place, an event, a remarkable cause or a character which count. The painters and other artists do not escape from this rule. Some are however "forgotten" of postal art. Here, gathered below (French or foreign), emitted stamps (206) or simple studies of stamp (224) in homage to the artists represented on our website. The first French stamp was emitted in 1849, England preceded us by ten years. There is often a share of voyage in this small form of shape paper. The stamp circulates, sails, flies away, it makes dream, then dream a little. M.C.
When the stamp is really emitted, the artist name is preceded of an asterisk (*). It is certain that we do not know each stamp emitted for such or such artist; do not hesitate with us to make known them!
Discover all the stamps
+ A tribute to...
See all the tribute pages...
A tribute to Henri Michaux
Sorry this section is only available in french for now.
Des suites d'un infarctus, le poète et peintre d'origine belge d'expression française - naturalisé français en 1955 - Henri Michaux est mort à l'hôpital de la Cité universitaire à Paris, dans la nuit du 18 au 19 octobre 1984, à l'âge de quatre-vingt-cinq ans. Il fut incinéré au cimetière du Père-Lachaise, en présence de quelques intimes. En son hommage, avec respect, cette pensée.
"Il n'y a pas de preuve que la puce, qui vit sur la souris, craigne le chat." - Henri Michaux
"N'apprends qu'avec réserve. Toute une vie ne suffit pas pour désapprendre ce que, naïf, soumis, tu t'es laissé mettre dans la tête – innocent ! - sans songer aux conséquences." - Henri Michaux
"Un jour j'arracherai l'ancre qui tient mon navire loin des mers." - Henri Michaux
"Je comprenais, je croyais comprendre, intérieurement et rétrospectivement, ce qui attire les foules et qui m’avait toujours paru tellement inepte." - Henri Michaux
"En ce siècle cloué au présent chacun / séparé chacun dans la grande banquise / parmi éclats tessons charpies tas tenaces / ailleurs pas d'ailleurs pas de rage non plus / crachat rentré barrage de cancers / et la corde au cou." - Bernard Noël
"Je fus transporté après ma mort, je fus transporté non dans un lieu confiné, mais dans l'immensité du vide éthérique. Loin de me laisser abattre par cette immense ouverture en tous sens à perte de vue, en ciel étoile, je me rassemblai et rassemblai tout ce que j'avais été, et ce que j'avais été sur le point d'être, et enfin tout ce que au calendrier secret de moi-même, je m'étais proposé de devenir et serrant le tout, mes qualités aussi, enfin mes vices, dernier rempart, je m'en fis caparace. / … /" - Henri Michaux
Art movements
+ LYRIC ART, ABSTRACT, TACHISM / 1950-1960 / Jackson Pollock, Emil Schumacher, etc.
All art movements
See & discover
Beyond works currently in stock, it seemed to me useful to combine business with pleasure by letting you discover others works by artists in my gallery. These artworks, now sold or removed from our website, have been in our stock in the past.
These pages will undoubtedly make it possible for some of you to associate an image with its title or the other way round, for others it will be a good time to discover more on such and such artist. For the sake of confidentiality – the pieces being no longer available – we won't display neither their numbering or their price. For whatever reason, make sure to visit this amazing art database with to date 6441 online works just for your pleasure! Michelle Champetier
See & discover