Rating and value of paintings by Jean Fautrier

If you own a work by or based on the artist Jean Fautrier and would like to know its value, our state-approved experts and auctioneers will guide you.

Our specialists will carry out a free appraisal of your work, and provide you with an accurate estimate of its value on the current market.

Then, should you wish to sell your work, we will direct you to the best possible arrangement to obtain the optimum price.

Artist's rating and value

Considered a major artist of lyrical abstraction, Jean Fautrier exhibited widely during his lifetime. As a result, he already enjoyed a certain notoriety and presence on the art market.

Today, his stock continues to rise, with the artist establishing himself as a sure bet on the art market, the prices at which they sell ranging from €10 to €4,354,140 on the art market.

A work by Fautrier can fetch hundreds of thousands of euros at auction, as evidenced by his composition Pièges, dating from 1946 sold for €4,354,140 in 2021, while it was estimated at between €1,161,100 and €1,741,650.

Order of value from the most basic to the most prestigious

The artist's style and technique

Jean Fautrier (1898 - 1964) is a major figure in French informal art. He developed an approach in which matter took precedence over figuration, testifying to a desire to express raw emotion through painting.

The artist works with serious themes; his Otages series, for example, was born in reaction to the horrors of the Second World War; the figures are barely suggested, as if dominated by the matter they dissolve.

He uses a very restricted palette, working in particular with grays, blacks and whites, which are employed to modulate texture and play on brilliance or density, applying thick layers, sometimes up to 1 cm thick, with a highly worked impasto more akin to relief sculpture than classical painting.

His technique often includes the use of encaustic, which consists in binding paint to wax, giving his works a matt, grainy and tactile finish. He sometimes adds sand and pigments, and generally anything that enriches the texture.

The works are not constructed, but flow in a gesture that blends controlled chance and force of gesture. This is sometimes referred to as event-painting. The shapes, which are often organic, emerge from the material itself, suggesting silhouettes almost buried in the surface.

Each canvas becomes an abstract relief, where the eye navigates between light and shadow, but also between density and emptiness. Fautrier's work is part of the European post-war period, a break with geometric abstraction: his language is raw, intimate and resolutely modern.

He shares Dubuffet's quest for primitive expression, but explores painting as an object, and matter as a subject. His work strongly influenced subsequent generations of informal artists in Europe and the U.S.

Artist's rating and value

Major works by Fautrier, notably canvases from the Otages series or large-format informal textures can fetch sums ranging from €500,000 to over €1 million, depending on the work's size, provenance and historical impact.

Results for medium-format works are generally expected between €150,000 and €400,000, particularly in the case of prestigious provenance or notable exhibition (museums, galleries).

Smaller works or paper, meanwhile, commonly have an estimate between €30,000 and €100,000, with variations depending on their condition, technical quality and presence within the catalog raisonné. We sometimes see increases of +20 to +50% for exceptional works, particularly in periods of high demand.

Inversely, however, works of lesser notoriety or produced in minor formats sometimes see estimate reductions of 10 to 30% for lack of targeted buyers.

A clear provenance or presence in an international exhibition can add 20% to 50% more value on the final estimate. Works belonging to the Otages series, which is emblematic of his artistic commitment, are generally the most sought-after and therefore the most highly priced.

The life of Jean Fautrier

Jean Fautrier (1898 - 1964) was born in Paris. Today, he is an essential figure in French informal art. As a child, he emigrated to London with his mother after a family bereavement in 1908. He went on to attend the Royal Academy of Arts (1912), then the Slade School of Fine Art, but never fully blossomed. He cultivated a great admiration for Turner.

Fautrier returned to Paris in 1920, quickly occupying a studio in Montmartre and then in Montparnasse from 1923. His first solo exhibition took place at the Galerie Visconti (1924), and was followed by support from Jeanne Castel and dealer Paul Guillaume.

He worked in figurative styles (still lifes, nudes, landscapes, thus becoming part of post-expressionism), and then produced a series of engravings for Dante's Inferno (1928), which were not published.

Faced with financial difficulties, he left Paris in 1934 to teach skiing in Tignes and run a hotel in Savoie, but managed his creative work in parallel. He returned to Paris before the war in 1939, and took part in the Resistance.

In 1943, he was arrested by the Gestapo, but managed to flee and found refuge in Châtenay - Malabry. He then created his major series Otages and Massacres, powerful works that express the tragedy of war. Other artists to choose this path include Otto Dix, Max Beckmann, Maurice Mendjinsky or Georg Baselitz.

The exhibition at Galerie Drouin in 1945 marked the start of his public success. In the 1950s, Fautrier developed a new series, Originaux-Multiples, a mixed technique combining painting and engraving, with the help of his partner Jeanine Aeply.

Fautrier received the Grand Prix at the Venice Biennale in 1960 and at the Tokyo Biennale in 1961. Until his death in 1964, he continued to produce abstract, procedural works that were both sensitive and radical.

A retrospective of his work was held the year of his death at the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris, and numerous donations enriched public collections. Since then, his work has been regularly exhibited (retrospectives have been held in Paris, Osaka and Winterthur), consolidating his place as one of the great pioneers of European informal art.

His signature

Although there are variations, here's a first example of his signature :

Expertise your property

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A member of our team of experts and certified auctioneers will contact you to provide an estimate of the market value of your work.

If you are considering selling your work, our specialists will also guide you through the various alternatives available to obtain the best possible price, taking into account market trends and the specific features of each work.