Henri NOUVEAU (1901-1959).
Born in Brasov (in Romania today), Nouveau is a French-Romanian musician and abstract painter, of German heritage.
As a child, Nouveau develops a taste for both music and precise geometry from the professions of his parents, his mother being a musician and his father an architect. He studies music in Budapest, and later Berlin, where he can observe novel avant-garde movements. He discovers Kandinsky’s and Klee’s art at the Bauhaus and will begin to compose music, as well as paint watercolors in 1923. After a two-year music course in Paris, Nouveau makes his first collages in 1927, thanks to the Bauhaus’ appreciation for interdisciplinary work. He permanently settles in Paris where his collage techniques and research in spatial reconstruction is perfected. He exhibits for the first time in 1930 but it is only after the war, that he shows his works to his fellow artist friends who immediately recognize in the pianist, a talent for abstract art. On Picabia’s advice, Nouveau exhibits in the Salon des ‘Realités Nouvelles’, where he will continuously exhibit until his death.