AB-MP4-1955-003 — The Hearth (1955)

Technical information

Title: The Hearth
Date: 1955
Technique: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 114 × 146 cm
Location: Private collection*

Biographical / historical context

At the moment when his painting moves toward increasingly abstract constructions, Breuillaud continues to revisit domestic themes: interior space, the table, the warmth of the fireplace. The Hearth can be understood as a scene of memory, in which the home becomes a laboratory for the fragmentation of planes.

The fact that the work is known through a values-based reproduction (an old print or archive photograph) reminds us that certain paintings of this period are documented rather than directly accessible. Here, the notice aims to reconstruct the compositional logic more than the chromatic sensation.

Formal / stylistic description

The composition is structured by a large central oval acting as a frame within the frame: an internal “window,” a focusing device. Inside this oval, space is built from blocks and angles converging toward a darker zone that evokes the firebox—the opening of the hearth or chimney breast.

Two lateral silhouettes, left and right, seem to border the scene. They are not individualised; the figure is reduced to volumes and planes, as if the human became an element of architecture. Diagonals and verticals answer each other, and the scene reads as much like a plan as a narrative.

The treatment in values sharpens edges and the play of superimpositions. Contrasts organise legibility—dense zones, light fields, intermediate passages—rather than smooth modelling. This economy brings the work close to a collage-like thinking, where fragments adjust through tension.

Comparative analysis / related works

The Hearth dialogues with earlier interiors and table scenes, but radicalises their construction. Where early-1950s works maintain a narrative anchor, here the subject becomes a pretext for an architecture of planes: the hearth is not described, it is placed as a centre of gravity.

Within the corpus, the central oval is a remarkable motif, announcing later explorations of threshold, niche and luminous opening (windows, arcs, reserves). The wish to make human presence coexist with built space results in an almost ceremonial scene.

The logic of facets, stacked planes and hierarchy of contrasts prepares the move toward contemporary abstract compositions, where the subject disappears while retaining an “interior” skeleton.

Justification of dating and attribution

The date 1955 aligns with the phase of structural recomposition: increased fragmentation, reduction of figure to volumes, and the centrality of a device (oval/hearth) as organiser. Overall coherence with other mid-1950s works supports this place in the corpus.

Attribution rests on Breuillaud’s spatial syntax and faceted construction. Documentation and reproduction references further strengthen the attribution.

Provenance / exhibitions / publications

Private collection*.

Publication: mentioned and/or reproduced in the Pillement catalogue (1967)*.