This is the first acquisition made through the Eugénie Crawford Bequest, which is specifically for paintings by artists of the second generation of the School of Paris. Soulages was among the artists identified by Mrs Crawford for possible acquisition of their works.
Pierre Soulages was born in 1919 in Rodez, France. Though he spent a short time studying at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he is mostly self-taught. From the first, his paintings have relied on a strong black structure; since the 1950s, he has been adding stains of colour to this basic structure. In a series of paintings dating from November and December 1967, to which group the Gallery’s picture belongs, the black retreats, as veils of colour flow down the canvas.
Peinture 6 novembre was first seen in Melbourne in 1969 at the National Gallery of Victoria, in the visiting exhibition Three Trends in Contemporary French Art.
Sonia Dean