Colette Brunschwig, born in 1927 in Le Havre,France, belongs to a generation of femalepainters active in the Parisian art scene afterthe Second World War. Like Pierette Bloch,she studied with the Cubist painter AndréLhote in the late 40s. It was also aroundthen that she met the philosopher EmmanuelLevinas, with whom she kept up a frequentcorrespondence. In 1952, she exhibited forthe first time at the legendary Galerie ColetteAllendy. As a representative of metaphysicalabstraction, her work feeds off Frenchexistentialism in a post-war context markedby such philosophical tendencies alongsidethe sweeping movement of abstraction inpainting. Chinese ‘literati’ painting is a centralreference in Brunschwig’s historic paintingsand drawings, which developed aroundnotions of a ‘third dimension’ between writingand images. With the use of ink she seeksto transcend the paper, both physically andphilosophically speaking.
