Judit Reigl is a painter who was in turn surreal, abstract or figurative. After arriving in France in 1950 after eight clandestine attempts to cross the Iron Curtain, Judit Reigl found Simon Hantaï, a fellow student at the Beaux Arts in Budapest, in Paris. The latter introduced her to André Breton in 1954 who, seduced by her surrealist paintings, invited her to exhibit at L’Étoile scellée. She then moved away from surrealism and produced several series marked by an intense gestuality: these were the Éclatements (1955-1958), the Centres of dominance…
Judit Reigl is a painter who was in turn surreal, abstract or figurative.
After arriving in France in 1950 after eight clandestine attempts to cross the Iron Curtain, Judit Reigl found Simon Hantaï, a fellow student at the Beaux Arts in Budapest, in Paris. The latter introduced her to André Breton in 1954 who, seduced by her surrealist paintings, invited her to exhibit at L’Étoile scellée.
She then moved away from surrealism and produced several series marked by an intense gestuality: these were the Éclatements (1955-1958), the Centres of dominance (1958-1959) and the Écritures en masse (1959-1965).
At the same time, the failed canvases are preserved on the floor of the workshop and strided, covered with pictorial droppings and then reworked: these are the Guano (1958-1965), the physical and material equivalent of the cosmic ambition of his gestural works.
More than the formal elegance of the gesture, it is its authenticity that Judit Reigl seeks, an authenticity that leads to an unexpected figuration, made of anthropomorphic torsos – mainly male – painted with force in a weightlessness located between flight and fall and occupying the entire surface of her paintings (Homme, 1966-1972 and Drap-Décodage, 1973). This work culminates with the abstract series Les Déroulements (1973-1985) where the artist deepens an automatic writing made of colored traces emerging by transparency on the reverse of the canvas. In her final abstract series of the years 1980-1988 she continued by the same principle, monumental rectangles appear gradually, evoking “doors” where human silhouettes slip (Face à…, 1988-1990). In the aftermath of these figurative apparitions, the naked bodies multiply: they appear alone or in groups, in front or in levitation, but always in silhouette on a united background, reduced to the essence of their being. This return to the figure testifies to a constant obsession in the artist: that of making the body – acting or represented – the very subject of her painting.
As she puts it well, “the essential foundation of every creative endeavor is the desperate desire to destroy the contradictions and limitations of personal, human and cosmic existence and to expand through a permanent revolution.” Judit Reigl always draws on the deepest experiences of her life to develop a very vast and complex reflection on the human. In search of essence and absoluteness, her work bears witness to the unknown.
Everything gravitates in Judit Reigl. Everything takes place in a space-time as infinite as indefinite. Her gesture unfolds on canvases freed from any context, from any temporality, which transmits her abstract or figurative forms into universal elements. The artist expresses herself in a permanent and always renewed movement. Her gestures, following the logic of their own «objective chance», appear in her paintings as a balance between the process and her intentions. It thus transforms, like a shaman, its human and metaphysical conceptions, derived from the torments and intensity of its own life, into a cosmic definition.
Judit Reigl’s works are notably present in the collections of the Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and in many French FRAC and museums as well as in major museums around the world, The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York), The Albright-Knox Gallery (Buffalo), The Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), The Tate Modern (London), Musée national des beaux-arts (Quebec), Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Musée de Rimouski (Quebec), Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art, The Museum of Fine Arts and The National Gallery (Budapest).
Centers of Dominance, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (June 30 – October 08)
Judit Reigl, « Je suis la Règle », Galerie Kamel Mennour, Paris (February 8 – March 26)
Judit Reigl, le vertige de l’infini, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen (September 17 – January 17, 2022)
Judit Reigl : Première abstraction, Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris (September 7 – November 20)
In Memoriam Judit Reigl, Kálmán Makláry Fine Arts, Budapest (September – October)
In Memoriam Judit Reigl, MODEM, Debrecen (August 20 – September 13)
Judit Reigl: Weightlessness, Ubu Gallery, New York (September 28 – February 16, 2019)
Judit Reigl: Black is a color, Kálmán Makláry Fine Arts, Budapest (November 29 – December 14)
Judit Reigl Dance of Death, Shepherd W&K Galleries, New York (September 25 – October 20)
Judit Reigl: Late Works, Janos Gat Gallery at Prisme, Paris (September 13 – October 6)
Judit Reigl “Le corps est le plus parfait instrument et le plus tragique obstacle”, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris (May 31 – August 19)
Judit Reigl: Body of Music, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin (February 2 – May 29)
Judit Reigl: Late Paintings and Drawings, The Merchant House, Amsterdam (November 11 – February 3)
Judit Reigl 1974-1984, Kálmán Makláry Fine Arts, Budapest (February 11 – March 18)
Judit Reigl: Emptiness and Ecstasy, Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest (March 22 – June 22)
Judit Reigl, Entrance-Exit (1986-89), Shepherd W&K Galleries, New York (October 31 – December 14)
Judit Reigl depuis 1950, le Déroulement de la peinture, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes (October 9 – January 2, 2011)
Judit Reigl, Déroulement, Kálmán Makláry Fine Arts,Budapest (May)
Judit Reigl, Unfolding, Janos Gat Gallery, New York (April 2 – May 30)
Judit Reigl, Série “Homme” 1966-1969, Erdész & Makláry Fine Arts, Budapest (February 28 – March 22)
Judit Reigl, A Survey, Janos Gat Gallery, New York (September 20 – November 24)
Judit Reigl, Déroulements, Galerie l’Or du Temps, Paris (June 1st – July 7)
Judit Reigl, Tensions 1956-2006, Galerie de France, Paris (March 16 – April 22)
Judit Reigl, Műcsarnok / Kunsthalle, Budapest (October 5 – November 13)
Judit Reigl, Peintre, Fondation pour l’Art Contemporain, Toulouse (October 30 – January 31, 2004)
Judit Reigl, Hors, Galerie de France, Paris (June 3 – July 24)
Judit Reigl : Autour de la donation Goreli, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (June 14 – July 25)
Judit Reigl, Séries 1986-1992, Galerie de France, Paris (March 18 – April 18)
Judit Reigl (Peintures 1986-1989), Centre d’art contemporain, Orléans (October 7 – November 3) ; Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain d’Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand (November 16 – January 20, 1990)
Judit Reigl, L’art de la fugue, peintures 1980–1982, Galerie de France, Paris (May – June)
Judit Reigl, Tableaux récents, Galerie Jolliet, Québec (May 23 – June 23)
Judit Reigl, Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris (january 5 – 31)
Judit Reigl : Peintures choisies 1958-1978, Musée de Peinture, Grenoble (September 14 – November 6)
Judit Reigl, peintures récentes, Galerie Rencontres, Paris (May 6 – June 26)
Judit Reigl, Traversées, ARC 2, Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris (November 5 – December 5)
Judit Reigl, Rétrospective, Maison de la Culture, Rennes (October 1st – 27)
Judit Reigl “Expérience de l’apesanteur”, Galerie van de Loo, Munich (November – December)
Judit Reigl, Galerie Kléber, Paris (February 12 – March 30)
Reigl, Drian Gallery, London (November 12 – December 2)
Judit Reigl, Galerie À l’étoile scellée, Paris (November 16 – December 6)
Action, Geste, Peinture – Femmes dans l’abstraction, une histoire mondiale, 1940-1970, Fondation Van Gogh, Arles (3 juin – 22 octobre)
Painting the Essential — Surrealism and the East, West Bund Museum, Shanghai (April 29 – September 24)
Surréalisme au féminin ?, Musée de Montmartre, Paris (March 31 – September 10)
Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-70, Whitechapel Gallery, London (February 9 – May 7)
Paris et nulle part ailleurs, 24 artistes étrangers à Paris. 1945-1972, Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration, Paris (September 27 – January 22, 2023)
Au cœur de l’abstraction – Collection de la Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul de Vence (July 2 – October 23)
The Shape of Freedom: International Abstraction after 1945, Museum Barberini, Potsdam (June 4 – September 25)
À mains nues, MAC VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine (January 9 – April 2, 2023)
New Light: Encounters and Connections, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (July 3 – February 6, 2022)
Elles font l’abstraction, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Pompidou, Paris (May 19 – August 23)
Femmes années 1950, au fil de l’abstraction, peinture et sculpture, Musée Soulages, Rodez (December 14 – October 31, 2020)
Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (May 24 – January 12, 2020)
La vraie vie est ailleurs ! Femmes artistes autour de Marta Pan : Simone Boisecq, Charlotte Calmis, Juana Muller, Véra Pagava, Judit Reigl, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Brest (June 27 – January 5, 2020)
Préhistoire, une énigme moderne, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Pompidou, Paris (May 8 – September 16)
Epic Abstraction: Pollock to Herrera, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (December 17 – February 4, 2019)
Joyeuses frictions, Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Strasbourg (October 5 – June 21, 2019)
Exposition des nommés du Prix Aware, Palais-Royal, Paris (January 20 – April 5)
International Abstraction, 1949-1960, Kobra Museum for Modern Art, Amstelveen (April 5 – August 31)
En trois temps : Robert Le Vrac Tournières, Marie-Gabrielle Capet, Joan Mitchell, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Caen (June 14 – September 21)
Brève histoire des lignes, Centre Pompidou, Metz (January 11 – April 1st)
Elles: Women Artists from the Centre Pompidou Paris, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle (October 11 – January 13, 2013)
Art of Another Kind: International Abstraction and the Guggenheim, 1949-1960, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (June 8 – September 12)
Elles@centrepompidou, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (May 27 – February 21, 2011)
Abstractions gestuelles après 1945, Grands formats de la collection du Musée national d’art moderne, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (June 25 – September 22)
Sign and Texture, Tate Modern, London (May – October)
L’Arte delle Donne, de la Renaissance au Surréalisme, Palazzo Reale, Milan (December 5 – March 9, 2008)
Judit Reigl & Simon Hantaï, Erdész & Makláry Fine Arts, Budapest (June 24 – July 14)
Le Noir est aussi une couleur, Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul-de-Vence (June 30 – November 5)
La Force de l’Art, Grand Palais, Paris (May 9 – June 5)
Le Regard de l’autre, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen (April 27 – September 2)
Signes, traces, écritures, de Alechinsky à Zao Wou-Ki, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, Galerie d’art graphique, Paris (January 17 – March 19)
Abstractions : France 1940-1965, Peintures et dessins des collections du Musée national d’art moderne, Musée Unterlinden, Colmar (October 16 – March 1st, 1998)
Made in France 1947-1997, Paris, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (January 30 – September 29)
La dimension du corps 1920-1980 (collections du Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou), National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (March 5 – May 19) ; Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (June 4 – August 18)
Manifeste. Une histoire parallèle : 1960-1990, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
La beauté sera convulsive. André Breton, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (April 25 – August 26) ; André Breton y el Surrealismo, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (October 2 – End of November)
I Surrealisti, Milan, Palazzo Reale ; Die Surrealisten, Schirn Kunsthalle am Roemerberg, Frankfurt am Main
The Subject of Painting: A Selection by Paul Rodgers of nine contemporary painters working in France: Bishop, Cane, Devade, Dezeuze, Hantaï, Nivollet, Reigl, Thiolat, Viallat, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford ; Cartwright Hall, Bradford ; Museum of Modern Art, Bristol (1983)
Hommage au pays natal, Műcsarnok/Kunsthalle, Budapest
Tendances de l’art en France, 1968-1978 : Les Partis-pris de Marcelin Pleynet, ARC, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris (September 13 – October 21)
3 villes, 3 collections : Grenoble, Marseille, Saint-Etienne : l’avant-garde, 1960-1976, Musée Cantini, Marseille ; Musée de peinture et de sculpture, Grenoble ; Musée d’art et d’industrie, Saint-Etienne
L’œil écoute. Exposition internationale d’art contemporain, Palais des Papes, Avignon
Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture, Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh (October 27 – January 7, 1968)
Guggenheim International Award, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Neue Malerei: Form, Struktur, Bedeutung, Städtische Galerie, Munich (June 10 – August 28) ; Städtisches Museum, Leverkusen
Mostra artistica dell’Accademia d’Ungheria in Roma, Académie hongroise, Roma
Judit Reigl is a painter who was in turn surreal, abstract or figurative.
After arriving in France in 1950 after eight clandestine attempts to cross the Iron Curtain, Judit Reigl found Simon Hantaï, a fellow student at the Beaux Arts in Budapest, in Paris. The latter introduced her to André Breton in 1954 who, seduced by her surrealist paintings, invited her to exhibit at L’Étoile scellée.
She then moved away from surrealism and produced several series marked by an intense gestuality: these were the Éclatements (1955-1958), the Centres of dominance (1958-1959) and the Écritures en masse (1959-1965).
At the same time, the failed canvases are preserved on the floor of the workshop and strided, covered with pictorial droppings and then reworked: these are the Guano (1958-1965), the physical and material equivalent of the cosmic ambition of his gestural works.
More than the formal elegance of the gesture, it is its authenticity that Judit Reigl seeks, an authenticity that leads to an unexpected figuration, made of anthropomorphic torsos – mainly male – painted with force in a weightlessness located between flight and fall and occupying the entire surface of her paintings (Homme, 1966-1972 and Drap-Décodage, 1973). This work culminates with the abstract series Les Déroulements (1973-1985) where the artist deepens an automatic writing made of colored traces emerging by transparency on the reverse of the canvas. In her final abstract series of the years 1980-1988 she continued by the same principle, monumental rectangles appear gradually, evoking “doors” where human silhouettes slip (Face à…, 1988-1990). In the aftermath of these figurative apparitions, the naked bodies multiply: they appear alone or in groups, in front or in levitation, but always in silhouette on a united background, reduced to the essence of their being. This return to the figure testifies to a constant obsession in the artist: that of making the body – acting or represented – the very subject of her painting.
As she puts it well, “the essential foundation of every creative endeavor is the desperate desire to destroy the contradictions and limitations of personal, human and cosmic existence and to expand through a permanent revolution.” Judit Reigl always draws on the deepest experiences of her life to develop a very vast and complex reflection on the human. In search of essence and absoluteness, her work bears witness to the unknown.
Everything gravitates in Judit Reigl. Everything takes place in a space-time as infinite as indefinite. Her gesture unfolds on canvases freed from any context, from any temporality, which transmits her abstract or figurative forms into universal elements. The artist expresses herself in a permanent and always renewed movement. Her gestures, following the logic of their own «objective chance», appear in her paintings as a balance between the process and her intentions. It thus transforms, like a shaman, its human and metaphysical conceptions, derived from the torments and intensity of its own life, into a cosmic definition.
Judit Reigl’s works are notably present in the collections of the Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and in many French FRAC and museums as well as in major museums around the world, The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York), The Albright-Knox Gallery (Buffalo), The Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), The Tate Modern (London), Musée national des beaux-arts (Quebec), Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Musée de Rimouski (Quebec), Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art, The Museum of Fine Arts and The National Gallery (Budapest).
Centers of Dominance, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (June 30 – October 08)
Judit Reigl, « Je suis la Règle », Galerie Kamel Mennour, Paris (February 8 – March 26)
Judit Reigl, le vertige de l’infini, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen (September 17 – January 17, 2022)
Judit Reigl : Première abstraction, Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris (September 7 – November 20)
In Memoriam Judit Reigl, Kálmán Makláry Fine Arts, Budapest (September – October)
In Memoriam Judit Reigl, MODEM, Debrecen (August 20 – September 13)
Judit Reigl: Weightlessness, Ubu Gallery, New York (September 28 – February 16, 2019)
Judit Reigl: Black is a color, Kálmán Makláry Fine Arts, Budapest (November 29 – December 14)
Judit Reigl Dance of Death, Shepherd W&K Galleries, New York (September 25 – October 20)
Judit Reigl: Late Works, Janos Gat Gallery at Prisme, Paris (September 13 – October 6)
Judit Reigl “Le corps est le plus parfait instrument et le plus tragique obstacle”, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris (May 31 – August 19)
Judit Reigl: Body of Music, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin (February 2 – May 29)
Judit Reigl: Late Paintings and Drawings, The Merchant House, Amsterdam (November 11 – February 3)
Judit Reigl 1974-1984, Kálmán Makláry Fine Arts, Budapest (February 11 – March 18)
Judit Reigl: Emptiness and Ecstasy, Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest (March 22 – June 22)
Judit Reigl, Entrance-Exit (1986-89), Shepherd W&K Galleries, New York (October 31 – December 14)
Judit Reigl depuis 1950, le Déroulement de la peinture, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes (October 9 – January 2, 2011)
Judit Reigl, Déroulement, Kálmán Makláry Fine Arts,Budapest (May)
Judit Reigl, Unfolding, Janos Gat Gallery, New York (April 2 – May 30)
Judit Reigl, Série “Homme” 1966-1969, Erdész & Makláry Fine Arts, Budapest (February 28 – March 22)
Judit Reigl, A Survey, Janos Gat Gallery, New York (September 20 – November 24)
Judit Reigl, Déroulements, Galerie l’Or du Temps, Paris (June 1st – July 7)
Judit Reigl, Tensions 1956-2006, Galerie de France, Paris (March 16 – April 22)
Judit Reigl, Műcsarnok / Kunsthalle, Budapest (October 5 – November 13)
Judit Reigl, Peintre, Fondation pour l’Art Contemporain, Toulouse (October 30 – January 31, 2004)
Judit Reigl, Hors, Galerie de France, Paris (June 3 – July 24)
Judit Reigl : Autour de la donation Goreli, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (June 14 – July 25)
Judit Reigl, Séries 1986-1992, Galerie de France, Paris (March 18 – April 18)
Judit Reigl (Peintures 1986-1989), Centre d’art contemporain, Orléans (October 7 – November 3) ; Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain d’Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand (November 16 – January 20, 1990)
Judit Reigl, L’art de la fugue, peintures 1980–1982, Galerie de France, Paris (May – June)
Judit Reigl, Tableaux récents, Galerie Jolliet, Québec (May 23 – June 23)
Judit Reigl, Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris (january 5 – 31)
Judit Reigl : Peintures choisies 1958-1978, Musée de Peinture, Grenoble (September 14 – November 6)
Judit Reigl, peintures récentes, Galerie Rencontres, Paris (May 6 – June 26)
Judit Reigl, Traversées, ARC 2, Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris (November 5 – December 5)
Judit Reigl, Rétrospective, Maison de la Culture, Rennes (October 1st – 27)
Judit Reigl “Expérience de l’apesanteur”, Galerie van de Loo, Munich (November – December)
Judit Reigl, Galerie Kléber, Paris (February 12 – March 30)
Reigl, Drian Gallery, London (November 12 – December 2)
Judit Reigl, Galerie À l’étoile scellée, Paris (November 16 – December 6)
Action, Geste, Peinture – Femmes dans l’abstraction, une histoire mondiale, 1940-1970, Fondation Van Gogh, Arles (3 juin – 22 octobre)
Painting the Essential — Surrealism and the East, West Bund Museum, Shanghai (April 29 – September 24)
Surréalisme au féminin ?, Musée de Montmartre, Paris (March 31 – September 10)
Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-70, Whitechapel Gallery, London (February 9 – May 7)
Paris et nulle part ailleurs, 24 artistes étrangers à Paris. 1945-1972, Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration, Paris (September 27 – January 22, 2023)
Au cœur de l’abstraction – Collection de la Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul de Vence (July 2 – October 23)
The Shape of Freedom: International Abstraction after 1945, Museum Barberini, Potsdam (June 4 – September 25)
À mains nues, MAC VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine (January 9 – April 2, 2023)
New Light: Encounters and Connections, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (July 3 – February 6, 2022)
Elles font l’abstraction, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Pompidou, Paris (May 19 – August 23)
Femmes années 1950, au fil de l’abstraction, peinture et sculpture, Musée Soulages, Rodez (December 14 – October 31, 2020)
Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (May 24 – January 12, 2020)
La vraie vie est ailleurs ! Femmes artistes autour de Marta Pan : Simone Boisecq, Charlotte Calmis, Juana Muller, Véra Pagava, Judit Reigl, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Brest (June 27 – January 5, 2020)
Préhistoire, une énigme moderne, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Pompidou, Paris (May 8 – September 16)
Epic Abstraction: Pollock to Herrera, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (December 17 – February 4, 2019)
Joyeuses frictions, Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Strasbourg (October 5 – June 21, 2019)
Exposition des nommés du Prix Aware, Palais-Royal, Paris (January 20 – April 5)
International Abstraction, 1949-1960, Kobra Museum for Modern Art, Amstelveen (April 5 – August 31)
En trois temps : Robert Le Vrac Tournières, Marie-Gabrielle Capet, Joan Mitchell, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Caen (June 14 – September 21)
Brève histoire des lignes, Centre Pompidou, Metz (January 11 – April 1st)
Elles: Women Artists from the Centre Pompidou Paris, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle (October 11 – January 13, 2013)
Art of Another Kind: International Abstraction and the Guggenheim, 1949-1960, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (June 8 – September 12)
Elles@centrepompidou, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (May 27 – February 21, 2011)
Abstractions gestuelles après 1945, Grands formats de la collection du Musée national d’art moderne, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (June 25 – September 22)
Sign and Texture, Tate Modern, London (May – October)
L’Arte delle Donne, de la Renaissance au Surréalisme, Palazzo Reale, Milan (December 5 – March 9, 2008)
Judit Reigl & Simon Hantaï, Erdész & Makláry Fine Arts, Budapest (June 24 – July 14)
Le Noir est aussi une couleur, Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul-de-Vence (June 30 – November 5)
La Force de l’Art, Grand Palais, Paris (May 9 – June 5)
Le Regard de l’autre, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen (April 27 – September 2)
Signes, traces, écritures, de Alechinsky à Zao Wou-Ki, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, Galerie d’art graphique, Paris (January 17 – March 19)
Abstractions : France 1940-1965, Peintures et dessins des collections du Musée national d’art moderne, Musée Unterlinden, Colmar (October 16 – March 1st, 1998)
Made in France 1947-1997, Paris, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (January 30 – September 29)
La dimension du corps 1920-1980 (collections du Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou), National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (March 5 – May 19) ; Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (June 4 – August 18)
Manifeste. Une histoire parallèle : 1960-1990, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
La beauté sera convulsive. André Breton, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (April 25 – August 26) ; André Breton y el Surrealismo, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (October 2 – End of November)
I Surrealisti, Milan, Palazzo Reale ; Die Surrealisten, Schirn Kunsthalle am Roemerberg, Frankfurt am Main
The Subject of Painting: A Selection by Paul Rodgers of nine contemporary painters working in France: Bishop, Cane, Devade, Dezeuze, Hantaï, Nivollet, Reigl, Thiolat, Viallat, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford ; Cartwright Hall, Bradford ; Museum of Modern Art, Bristol (1983)
Hommage au pays natal, Műcsarnok/Kunsthalle, Budapest
Tendances de l’art en France, 1968-1978 : Les Partis-pris de Marcelin Pleynet, ARC, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris (September 13 – October 21)
3 villes, 3 collections : Grenoble, Marseille, Saint-Etienne : l’avant-garde, 1960-1976, Musée Cantini, Marseille ; Musée de peinture et de sculpture, Grenoble ; Musée d’art et d’industrie, Saint-Etienne
L’œil écoute. Exposition internationale d’art contemporain, Palais des Papes, Avignon
Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture, Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh (October 27 – January 7, 1968)
Guggenheim International Award, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Neue Malerei: Form, Struktur, Bedeutung, Städtische Galerie, Munich (June 10 – August 28) ; Städtisches Museum, Leverkusen
Mostra artistica dell’Accademia d’Ungheria in Roma, Académie hongroise, Roma
Judit Reigl is a painter who was in turn surreal, abstract or figurative. After arriving in France in 1950 after eight clandestine attempts to cross the Iron Curtain, Judit Reigl found Simon Hantaï, a fellow student at the Beaux Arts in Budapest, in Paris. The latter introduced her to André Breton in 1954 who, seduced by her surrealist paintings, invited her to exhibit at L’Étoile scellée. She then moved away from surrealism and produced several series marked by an intense gestuality: these were the Éclatements (1955-1958), the Centres of dominance…
Judit Reigl is a painter who was in turn surreal, abstract or figurative.
After arriving in France in 1950 after eight clandestine attempts to cross the Iron Curtain, Judit Reigl found Simon Hantaï, a fellow student at the Beaux Arts in Budapest, in Paris. The latter introduced her to André Breton in 1954 who, seduced by her surrealist paintings, invited her to exhibit at L’Étoile scellée.
She then moved away from surrealism and produced several series marked by an intense gestuality: these were the Éclatements (1955-1958), the Centres of dominance (1958-1959) and the Écritures en masse (1959-1965).
At the same time, the failed canvases are preserved on the floor of the workshop and strided, covered with pictorial droppings and then reworked: these are the Guano (1958-1965), the physical and material equivalent of the cosmic ambition of his gestural works.
More than the formal elegance of the gesture, it is its authenticity that Judit Reigl seeks, an authenticity that leads to an unexpected figuration, made of anthropomorphic torsos – mainly male – painted with force in a weightlessness located between flight and fall and occupying the entire surface of her paintings (Homme, 1966-1972 and Drap-Décodage, 1973). This work culminates with the abstract series Les Déroulements (1973-1985) where the artist deepens an automatic writing made of colored traces emerging by transparency on the reverse of the canvas. In her final abstract series of the years 1980-1988 she continued by the same principle, monumental rectangles appear gradually, evoking “doors” where human silhouettes slip (Face à…, 1988-1990). In the aftermath of these figurative apparitions, the naked bodies multiply: they appear alone or in groups, in front or in levitation, but always in silhouette on a united background, reduced to the essence of their being. This return to the figure testifies to a constant obsession in the artist: that of making the body – acting or represented – the very subject of her painting.
As she puts it well, “the essential foundation of every creative endeavor is the desperate desire to destroy the contradictions and limitations of personal, human and cosmic existence and to expand through a permanent revolution.” Judit Reigl always draws on the deepest experiences of her life to develop a very vast and complex reflection on the human. In search of essence and absoluteness, her work bears witness to the unknown.
Everything gravitates in Judit Reigl. Everything takes place in a space-time as infinite as indefinite. Her gesture unfolds on canvases freed from any context, from any temporality, which transmits her abstract or figurative forms into universal elements. The artist expresses herself in a permanent and always renewed movement. Her gestures, following the logic of their own «objective chance», appear in her paintings as a balance between the process and her intentions. It thus transforms, like a shaman, its human and metaphysical conceptions, derived from the torments and intensity of its own life, into a cosmic definition.
Judit Reigl’s works are notably present in the collections of the Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and in many French FRAC and museums as well as in major museums around the world, The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York), The Albright-Knox Gallery (Buffalo), The Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), The Tate Modern (London), Musée national des beaux-arts (Quebec), Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Musée de Rimouski (Quebec), Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art, The Museum of Fine Arts and The National Gallery (Budapest).
Centers of Dominance, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (June 30 – October 08)
Judit Reigl, « Je suis la Règle », Galerie Kamel Mennour, Paris (February 8 – March 26)
Judit Reigl, le vertige de l’infini, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen (September 17 – January 17, 2022)
Judit Reigl : Première abstraction, Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris (September 7 – November 20)
In Memoriam Judit Reigl, Kálmán Makláry Fine Arts, Budapest (September – October)
In Memoriam Judit Reigl, MODEM, Debrecen (August 20 – September 13)
Judit Reigl: Weightlessness, Ubu Gallery, New York (September 28 – February 16, 2019)
Judit Reigl: Black is a color, Kálmán Makláry Fine Arts, Budapest (November 29 – December 14)
Judit Reigl Dance of Death, Shepherd W&K Galleries, New York (September 25 – October 20)
Judit Reigl: Late Works, Janos Gat Gallery at Prisme, Paris (September 13 – October 6)
Judit Reigl “Le corps est le plus parfait instrument et le plus tragique obstacle”, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris (May 31 – August 19)
Judit Reigl: Body of Music, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin (February 2 – May 29)
Judit Reigl: Late Paintings and Drawings, The Merchant House, Amsterdam (November 11 – February 3)
Judit Reigl 1974-1984, Kálmán Makláry Fine Arts, Budapest (February 11 – March 18)
Judit Reigl: Emptiness and Ecstasy, Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest (March 22 – June 22)
Judit Reigl, Entrance-Exit (1986-89), Shepherd W&K Galleries, New York (October 31 – December 14)
Judit Reigl depuis 1950, le Déroulement de la peinture, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes (October 9 – January 2, 2011)
Judit Reigl, Déroulement, Kálmán Makláry Fine Arts,Budapest (May)
Judit Reigl, Unfolding, Janos Gat Gallery, New York (April 2 – May 30)
Judit Reigl, Série “Homme” 1966-1969, Erdész & Makláry Fine Arts, Budapest (February 28 – March 22)
Judit Reigl, A Survey, Janos Gat Gallery, New York (September 20 – November 24)
Judit Reigl, Déroulements, Galerie l’Or du Temps, Paris (June 1st – July 7)
Judit Reigl, Tensions 1956-2006, Galerie de France, Paris (March 16 – April 22)
Judit Reigl, Műcsarnok / Kunsthalle, Budapest (October 5 – November 13)
Judit Reigl, Peintre, Fondation pour l’Art Contemporain, Toulouse (October 30 – January 31, 2004)
Judit Reigl, Hors, Galerie de France, Paris (June 3 – July 24)
Judit Reigl : Autour de la donation Goreli, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (June 14 – July 25)
Judit Reigl, Séries 1986-1992, Galerie de France, Paris (March 18 – April 18)
Judit Reigl (Peintures 1986-1989), Centre d’art contemporain, Orléans (October 7 – November 3) ; Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain d’Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand (November 16 – January 20, 1990)
Judit Reigl, L’art de la fugue, peintures 1980–1982, Galerie de France, Paris (May – June)
Judit Reigl, Tableaux récents, Galerie Jolliet, Québec (May 23 – June 23)
Judit Reigl, Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris (january 5 – 31)
Judit Reigl : Peintures choisies 1958-1978, Musée de Peinture, Grenoble (September 14 – November 6)
Judit Reigl, peintures récentes, Galerie Rencontres, Paris (May 6 – June 26)
Judit Reigl, Traversées, ARC 2, Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris (November 5 – December 5)
Judit Reigl, Rétrospective, Maison de la Culture, Rennes (October 1st – 27)
Judit Reigl “Expérience de l’apesanteur”, Galerie van de Loo, Munich (November – December)
Judit Reigl, Galerie Kléber, Paris (February 12 – March 30)
Reigl, Drian Gallery, London (November 12 – December 2)
Judit Reigl, Galerie À l’étoile scellée, Paris (November 16 – December 6)
Action, Geste, Peinture – Femmes dans l’abstraction, une histoire mondiale, 1940-1970, Fondation Van Gogh, Arles (3 juin – 22 octobre)
Painting the Essential — Surrealism and the East, West Bund Museum, Shanghai (April 29 – September 24)
Surréalisme au féminin ?, Musée de Montmartre, Paris (March 31 – September 10)
Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-70, Whitechapel Gallery, London (February 9 – May 7)
Paris et nulle part ailleurs, 24 artistes étrangers à Paris. 1945-1972, Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration, Paris (September 27 – January 22, 2023)
Au cœur de l’abstraction – Collection de la Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul de Vence (July 2 – October 23)
The Shape of Freedom: International Abstraction after 1945, Museum Barberini, Potsdam (June 4 – September 25)
À mains nues, MAC VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine (January 9 – April 2, 2023)
New Light: Encounters and Connections, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (July 3 – February 6, 2022)
Elles font l’abstraction, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Pompidou, Paris (May 19 – August 23)
Femmes années 1950, au fil de l’abstraction, peinture et sculpture, Musée Soulages, Rodez (December 14 – October 31, 2020)
Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (May 24 – January 12, 2020)
La vraie vie est ailleurs ! Femmes artistes autour de Marta Pan : Simone Boisecq, Charlotte Calmis, Juana Muller, Véra Pagava, Judit Reigl, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Brest (June 27 – January 5, 2020)
Préhistoire, une énigme moderne, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Pompidou, Paris (May 8 – September 16)
Epic Abstraction: Pollock to Herrera, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (December 17 – February 4, 2019)
Joyeuses frictions, Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Strasbourg (October 5 – June 21, 2019)
Exposition des nommés du Prix Aware, Palais-Royal, Paris (January 20 – April 5)
International Abstraction, 1949-1960, Kobra Museum for Modern Art, Amstelveen (April 5 – August 31)
En trois temps : Robert Le Vrac Tournières, Marie-Gabrielle Capet, Joan Mitchell, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Caen (June 14 – September 21)
Brève histoire des lignes, Centre Pompidou, Metz (January 11 – April 1st)
Elles: Women Artists from the Centre Pompidou Paris, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle (October 11 – January 13, 2013)
Art of Another Kind: International Abstraction and the Guggenheim, 1949-1960, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (June 8 – September 12)
Elles@centrepompidou, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (May 27 – February 21, 2011)
Abstractions gestuelles après 1945, Grands formats de la collection du Musée national d’art moderne, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (June 25 – September 22)
Sign and Texture, Tate Modern, London (May – October)
L’Arte delle Donne, de la Renaissance au Surréalisme, Palazzo Reale, Milan (December 5 – March 9, 2008)
Judit Reigl & Simon Hantaï, Erdész & Makláry Fine Arts, Budapest (June 24 – July 14)
Le Noir est aussi une couleur, Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul-de-Vence (June 30 – November 5)
La Force de l’Art, Grand Palais, Paris (May 9 – June 5)
Le Regard de l’autre, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen (April 27 – September 2)
Signes, traces, écritures, de Alechinsky à Zao Wou-Ki, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, Galerie d’art graphique, Paris (January 17 – March 19)
Abstractions : France 1940-1965, Peintures et dessins des collections du Musée national d’art moderne, Musée Unterlinden, Colmar (October 16 – March 1st, 1998)
Made in France 1947-1997, Paris, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (January 30 – September 29)
La dimension du corps 1920-1980 (collections du Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou), National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (March 5 – May 19) ; Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (June 4 – August 18)
Manifeste. Une histoire parallèle : 1960-1990, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
La beauté sera convulsive. André Breton, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (April 25 – August 26) ; André Breton y el Surrealismo, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (October 2 – End of November)
I Surrealisti, Milan, Palazzo Reale ; Die Surrealisten, Schirn Kunsthalle am Roemerberg, Frankfurt am Main
The Subject of Painting: A Selection by Paul Rodgers of nine contemporary painters working in France: Bishop, Cane, Devade, Dezeuze, Hantaï, Nivollet, Reigl, Thiolat, Viallat, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford ; Cartwright Hall, Bradford ; Museum of Modern Art, Bristol (1983)
Hommage au pays natal, Műcsarnok/Kunsthalle, Budapest
Tendances de l’art en France, 1968-1978 : Les Partis-pris de Marcelin Pleynet, ARC, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris (September 13 – October 21)
3 villes, 3 collections : Grenoble, Marseille, Saint-Etienne : l’avant-garde, 1960-1976, Musée Cantini, Marseille ; Musée de peinture et de sculpture, Grenoble ; Musée d’art et d’industrie, Saint-Etienne
L’œil écoute. Exposition internationale d’art contemporain, Palais des Papes, Avignon
Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture, Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh (October 27 – January 7, 1968)
Guggenheim International Award, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Neue Malerei: Form, Struktur, Bedeutung, Städtische Galerie, Munich (June 10 – August 28) ; Städtisches Museum, Leverkusen
Mostra artistica dell’Accademia d’Ungheria in Roma, Académie hongroise, Roma