Abbé Morel (1908-1991), Untitled, Abstract Composition

Abbé Morel (1908-1991), Maurice Morel said,
Untitled, composition in black, orange, green and plum
Mixed media on glossy paper (cut magazine page)
Signed on the back
23 x 10 cm
plexiglas frame 30 x 20 cm

Spiritual painter, fervent defender of modern art, Maurice Morel was born in Ornans in 1908. He discovered at a very young age a dual vocation: priestly and artistic. At the end of college, he left Besançon to settle in Paris in 1927. He met the artists Georges Rouault and Max Jacob who would become his friends and mentors. The latter, for whom Maurice Morel worked, introduced him to the artistic and literary world of the interwar period. He then collaborated with Jean Bazaine and Alfred Manessier before carrying out more personal research.

Maurice Morel exhibited for the first time in 1933 during an exhibition intended to promote modern religious art held at the Lucy Krohg gallery (Paris VIII). Becoming an abbot in 1934, he committed himself to a sacred art integrating the upheavals of modern art and more broadly to the defense of artists who would become those of the New School of Paris to which he was also attached. He wrote numerous art critiques and spoke at dozens of conferences, the most famous of which was that of 1946 devoted to Pablo Picasso at the Sorbonne and which earned him the nickname “art priest” by the Canard Enchainé.

His action came to fruition in the 1950s when Pope Pius XII asked him to consider creating a section devoted to modern art within the Vatican Museums. Inaugurated in 1973, it is the symbol of the Church's acceptance of a non-figurative representation of the Gospel. Father Morel favors small formats made on recycled makeshift supports like pages cut out from magazines and other cardboard. He uses various brush techniques (gouache, wax, oil pastel, watercolor) but also felt-tip pen and ink. He confesses to a “great appetite for colors” that appeared during childhood.

He was decorated by André Malraux in 1968 for the cultural influence of his action.