STUDIO ARCHIVE: Daniel ABEL (1933–2024), auction, on July 27th, 2026 in VAUX-LE-PENIL

Terms of sale

‘It is the duty of the writer and the poet to take the side of the forces of life, to loosen the stranglehold as much as possible, to celebrate life in all its forms, and to urge everyone to resist – to resist the levelling of society, exclusion, and the inevitability of misfortune’.” Born in Châtel-sur-Moselle in the Vosges in 1933, Daniel Abel studied literature and art before teaching literature and fine art in Seine-et-Marne. A poet and visual artist, he made a name for himself as one of the last members of the Surrealist movement, which led him to meet André Breton, for whom he harboured deep admiration. Encouraged by the writer Marcel Béalu, he published his first works in the journal *Réalités secrètes*, and came to describe himself as the capital’s ‘peasant poet’. Over the years, he published nearly thirty booklets and contributed to various journals and anthologies, blending both dreamlike and incisive writings. A prolific artist, Abel developed a vast and multifaceted body of visual work, comprising handwritten letters, collages, drawings, object-poems and assemblages. He favours recycled materials – “art is recycling” – and an economy of means, giving rise to all manner of assemblages and sculptures (boxes, masks and totems) in which the fantastical potential of spontaneous gesture merges with poetry. Collage and automatic writing, inherited from Surrealism and inspired by Joseph Cornell and Max Ernst, are the essential components of his world, imbued with magic and escapism through ‘the conquest of new horizons’. Fascinated by nature and the atmospheres of the world he has travelled through, Abel rejects all forms of convention and oppression. He is a free, dreamy and committed artist – elusive, like the water that fascinated him – oscillating between art brut and contemporary art. His works have been exhibited on numerous occasions in France, notably at the FIAC, the Salon d’Automne, the Maison de la Poésie and the Printemps des Singuliers in Paris, as well as at the Fabuloserie in Dicy (Yonne), at Luis Marcel’s ‘L’art en marche’ in Lapalisse (Allier), and even as far afield as New York, during an exhibition dedicated to art brut. Among his most notable exhibitions are ‘Creusets de mémoire. Boxes and Assemblages’ (1993) and ‘Les ciseaux du rêve’ (2001), two exhibitions organised in Paris by Marcel Fleiss’s Galerie 1900–2000, an iconic venue for the artistic avant-garde. Many of his works have thus found their way into prestigious or renowned private collections, such as that of Cérès Franco.

See original version (French)

Payment terms:

Deposits can be paid online, with the balance payable by credit card online or by bank transfer.

See original version (French)

Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.

Timed July 27th, 2026 at 8:00 PM 77000 VAUX-LE-PENIL - France

Timed

July 27th, 2026 at 8:00 PM

77000 VAUX-LE-PENIL - France