Andrée Le Coultre

[1] In 1941, she and Régny visited the potter Anne Dangar who was participating at the Moly-Sabata [fr] artist colony[1][5] created by Albert Gleizes.

She read a lot of books on art and artists, and was influenced by Van Gogh, Cézanne, Matisse, Robert Delaunay, André Lhote, Léger, and others.

[7] In 1946, René Deroudille [fr] exhibited a retrospective of Le Coultre's paintings at the Maison de la Pensée Française.

[3][6] The couple started working that year according to the principles of Albert Gleizes, whom they finally met in 1947 and with whom they remained in regular correspondence, concerning paintings they submitted to him.

[3] In 1948 she participated as an instructor along with Paul Régny and Jean Chevalier [fr] in hosting a workshop for amateur artists, the Arc-en-ciel (Rainbow),[1] managed by Albert Gleizes.

Le Coultre's work became characterized by non-figurative paintings or gouaches composed, following Gleizes's theories, of geometric shapes in muted colors, open circles, and broken lines.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Andrée Le Coultre started exploring themes of her own, alternating non-figurative motifs with a return to specific topics such as religious subjects, where one can feel the influence of medieval art and Irish art, drawn for example from the Old Testament or from the Apocalypse, which gives space for her more imaginary visions to take flight; but also of scenes of daily life where constructions, rhythms, modulations and color harmonies like reds and blues can come into play.

[2] In the notes for a 1978 exhibition, Le Coultre said that after following rigorous principles [of Gleizes] for some time, she was becoming more spontaneous: "Imagination is grafted onto construction to express a space where 'creatures' arise and evolve, sometimes in spite of myself.

Born of Cubist rationality, tinged by Gleizes' esotericism, Andrée Le Coultre turns to flora, fauna, castles of dreams...