Image: Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden
Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden will open ‘Entfaltung der Farbe. Simon Hantaï’ on 15 August 2026, presenting what it describes as the first major survey of the artist at a German museum in more than 25 years. The exhibition runs through 10 January 2027 and brings together around 40 works, including several monumental paintings, drawn from four decades of Simon Hantaï’s career.
The museum’s announcement places Hantaï among the key figures of international postwar modernism. Born in 1922 and active in France after emigrating from Hungary to Paris in 1948, Hantaï developed a body of work that helped shape the development of free abstraction. The museum says the Baden-Baden presentation will offer a multifaceted overview of his work and its contribution to international postwar abstraction through a concentrated selection of major paintings.
Hantaï’s practice is presented here through the lens of experimentation with folding and color. According to the museum’s preview material, he turned to what it calls ‘pliage comme méthode’ in 1960, using folded canvas covered with oil or acrylic paint to generate luminous, chance-based patterns. The exhibition page also notes that this radical research marked a turning point in his work. The museum characterizes the show as a sensually engaging survey of Hantaï’s color-driven painting.
The Baden-Baden exhibition also arrives with a substantial institutional frame. The museum’s preview states that the show was developed with generous support from the Archives Simon Hantaï in Paris. It further notes that works in the exhibition come from a range of lenders, including Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, Fondation Gandur pour l’Art in Geneva, Fondation Louis Vuitton, the Musée d’art moderne de Paris, and the Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Étienne.
Museum Frieder Burda’s online preview situates Hantaï within a broader European art history. After an early surrealist phase, the artist moved toward Informel painting in the 1950s and engaged closely with the work of Jackson Pollock, before his later folding method defined the best-known phase of his career. The museum also notes that Hantaï received the Grand Prix National des Arts Plastiques in 1980 and represented France at the Venice Biennale two years later.
The exhibition listing on the museum’s website gives the dates as 15 August 2026 to 10 January 2027. Alongside the show, the museum says a richly illustrated catalogue in German and English will be available from 15 August in the Concept Store and on the museum website. A related concert by Trio Hantaï, titled ‘Johann Sebastian Bach und seine Zeitgenossen in Frankreich’, is scheduled for 16 August 2026 at 7 p.m., with Marc Hantaï on travers flute, Jérôme Hantaï on viola da gamba and Pierre Hantaï on harpsichord.
