Antoine de Margerie (17 November 1941, Cusset – 9 February 2005), was an abstract painter from a family of French diplomats.
Following a childhood in Paris and the Auvergne, Antoine de Margerie lived with his parents in a number of diplomatic postings, in Madrid, Washington, Rome and Berlin.
Art is already part of his background because an uncle, Paul de Laboulaye (1902–1961) is a painter who encourages the adolescent Antoine in his interest.
In 1964 he married Anne Guillet, whom he met at the École du Louvre, and they subsequently have two daughters, Constance and Isabelle.
In his thirties, de Margorie shifted to abstraction, an inspired geometry (as with Mondrian or Malevitch) replacing his youthful lyricism.
'Pastels, watercolours, paintings or engravings, the same applies: constructed elements, a limited range of motifs and not more than one per canvas!
Reflecting on and analysing space precedes any gesture of the paintbrush, which remains discreet because it is but a servant of the painted.
In the middle of muted tones, reds, blues and oranges make their appearance and thereby announce the blossoming of colour'.
What strikes me most, if I flip rapidly through the book, is how the coloured line evolves (most evidently in the last pages) towards a luminous red, before slowly darkening to sombre, black canvases; then lightening again to transparent, almost secretive whites in all their splendour'.