Nicolas de Staël

De Staël was born in 1914 in Saint Petersburg, Russia, into an aristocratic family. Following the Russian Revolution, his family fled, and he was eventually educated in Brussels, Belgium. He settled in Paris in the late 1930s and became a naturalised French citizen, establishing himself as one of the leading postwar painters in France.

De Staël was famous for applying paint in thick slabs and troweled layers, using a palette knife to build up bold, sculptural blocks of colour. His heavily impastoed canvases bridged abstraction and figuration, particularly in his later seascapes and football-match paintings. He often worked on very large canvases, applying paint with extraordinary physicality.

De Staël died in 1955 in Antibes, France, at the age of 41. He reportedly took his own life by falling from the window of his studio. His death came at a time when he was achieving significant critical and commercial recognition in France and internationally.

De Staël was inspired to create a series of paintings based on a football match between France and Sweden that he attended at the Parc des Princes in Paris in 1952. He was captivated by the movement and energy of the players and the colours of the stadium. The resulting works translated the action of the game into abstract blocks of vivid colour and are among his most celebrated paintings.