Cela qui gronde – 1967
Oil on canvas
130 x 162 cm / 51. x 63.77 in.
Signed ‘Hug Arthur Bertrand’ lower right; titled and dated on the reverse
Certificate by M. Philippe Bertrand

Déferlant rouge et gris sur brun – c. 1970
Oil on canvas
130 x 162 cm / 51.2 x 63.8 in.
Signed ‘Hug Arthur Bertrand’ lower left; signed and titled on the reverse
Certificate by M. Philippe Bertrand

Remous – 1984-1986
Oil on canvas
130 x 162 cm / 51.2 x 63.8 in.
Signed ‘Hug Arthur Bertrand’ lower left; signed, titled and dated on the reverse
Certificate by M. Philippe Bertrand

L’amant cachalot – c. 1990
Oil on canvas
96 x 141 cm / 37.79 x 55.51 in.
Signed ‘Arthur Bertrand’ lower left; signed and titled on the reverse
Certificate by M. Philippe Bertrand

Voie directe – 1992
Oil on canvas
162 x 130 cm / 63.77 x 51.18 in.
Signed ‘Hug Arthur Bertrand’ lower right; signed, titled and dated on the reverse
Certificate by M. Philippe Bertrand

Gévaudan – c. 1966
Oil on canvas
200 x 200 cm / 78.7 x 78.7 in.
Signed ‘Hug Arthur Bertrand’ lower right, signed and titled on the reverse
Certificate by M. Philippe Bertrand

“Neither geometrism, nor abstract landscaping. Beautiful lyrical abstraction which draws its inspiration from the 1950s and has continually swelled its waters (…); strong convictions that no fashion can undermine.”  Michel Ragon

A rare woman painter of Post-War Lyrical Abstraction, Huguette Arthur Bertrand was an active participant in the Parisian artistic scene, rubbing shoulders with Pierre Soulages, Gérard Schneider, Hans Hartung, Zao Wou-Ki and Chu Teh-Chun among others.

Huguette Arthur Bertrand participated in key exhibitions such as Les Mains éblouies [The Dazzled hands] at the Galerie Maeght (1949-1950) and exhibited regularly at the Salon de Mai and at the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles.

Her volatile work, which is definitively abstract from 1950 on, spreads out on colored backgrounds with controlled gestures, tight graphics and narrow black streaks, to progressively freer gestures, that are initially intense and nervous, becoming more serene, summarized in subtle white lines towards the 1980s.
Huguette Arthur Bertrand’s art is specific to her, unique, devoid of any code: abstraction that is neither sign nor writing.

In the 1970s, wanting to infuse “a trembling of space” into her works, she created murals.

“A painting is not a staging but the natural trace of an action, an event that takes place.”  Huguette Arthur Bertrand
“A painter of the dynamism of inner life, secret life with its outbursts and its retractions… a subtle and expressive colourist.” Michel Ragon