The work of Jean Rustin is relatively little known.
Until the late 1960s, his abstract painting had a large following in France.
However, while most European and American artists were widening the gap between themselves and the figurative traditions that preceded Modernism, Rustin started to swim against the current, a decision which in the short term cost him dearly.
"As Rustin illuminates them so gently, so reverently, the dark room of their lives takes on a mystical value"
Sister Wendy Beckett
"His control of painting as instrument is complete, so much so that it becomes transparent. (…) Paintings are there, all of a sudden, immediate, pressing. Pitiless and irrefutable. The negative side of the world reveals itself. Of how many paintings today can we say so much?"
Philippe Dagen
www.rustin.be