THE SEVENTIES: 71, RUE DU FAUBOURG SAINT-HONORÉ, PARIS 8E

Galerie HELENE BAILLY MARCILHAC is pleased to present the exhibition THE SEVENTIES, devoted to a selection of emblematic works from the 1970s.

A decade of transition and renewal, the 1970s extended the major aesthetic revolutions of the 20th century while asserting a new freedom of expression, marked by formal boldness, color, and experimentation.

Inheriting the legacies of Cubism, Surrealism, Lyrical Abstraction, and Art Informel, the works of this period reflect an artistic maturity in which the research initiated in the postwar years found new momentum. Abstraction, deeply rooted in the preceding decades, became further liberated from formal constraints, giving way to a gestural and intuitive mode of expression, embodied by artists such as Hans Hartung, Serge Poliakoff, Chu Teh-Chun, and Jean-Paul Riopelle.

Painting in the 1970s is distinguished by its chromatic intensity and vibrant energy, evident in the works of Joan Miró, Sam Francis, and Sonia Delaunay. Situated between abstraction and poetic figuration, color becomes an autonomous language, a vehicle for emotion and movement. The late works of Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall, meanwhile, reaffirm the continuity of a modern imagination in constant dialogue with its time.

Sculpture and the decorative arts occupy an essential place within this exhibition, illustrating the breaking down of disciplinary boundaries characteristic of the 1970s. Works by Alexander Calder, François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne, and Diego Giacometti reflect a renewed relationship to form, space, and object, in which art becomes fully integrated into everyday life and contemporary ways of living.

Through this selection, THE SEVENTIES highlights an aesthetic that is both retro and timeless, a symbol of artistic freedom and emancipation. This exhibition celebrates a decade whose legacy remains profoundly relevant today, revealing the richness and diversity of a constantly evolving creative landscape.