Aero pilot, engineer, newspaper man, MP for France’s Oise department, a senior executive within the Dassault Group, but also a photographer... Olivier Dassault was a man of many hats. Although he died in a helicopter accident in 2021, he left behind a large body of photographic work. The “Abstract Expressions” exhibition at the Galerie Indépendance of the Banque Internationale à Luxembourg is organised in collaboration with his wife, Natacha Dassault, and his collaborator, Chantal Dusserre-Bresson, who curates the exhibition, with the help of Stéphanie Breydel de Groeninghe.
“Olivier Dassault always loved and taken photographs,” explains Dusserre-Bresson. “It was like breathing for him. At the beginning of his career, at the end of the 1960s, he took portraits of famous actresses such as Jane Birkin and Isabelle Huppert, because his grandfather was also a film producer and gave him access to that world. Then his style evolved, moving towards more impressionistic images, sometimes romantic, then hyper-realistic. He then had an interest in architecture and, of course, light.”
Light, colour and composition
Work with light is indeed a very present element in the forty or so photographs on show at the Bil, but so are colour and composition. The work “Circulation d’art” is a tribute to the architecture of the Centre Pompidou in Paris. With an eye trained to fly an aeroplane, Olivier Dassault didn’t hesitate to double, reverse and invert certain images. He performs visual loops, as in the monumental work Ouvrage Montresso. At other times, he is more colourist, as with--amongst others--the totem pole “Signature.” In the selection of works presented at the Galerie Indépendance, there is a clear search for aestheticism, for sustained reflection on framing, composition, pictorial and chromatic balance.
The art of the essay
Olivier Dassault also experimented a lot. “For example, he would block the negative and take several photos on the same film. Sometimes the results were blurred, other times they were of better quality. We mustn’t forget that Olivier trained as an engineer and that this experimental, but also very rational, character was very much part of his personality,” explains Dusserre-Bresson, who assisted him for many years in the production of his photographic prints.
“Olivier was a man who loved extremes,” adds Natacha Dassault. “He was just as at home in New York as he was in the deserts. But he was also a man who was fully in the moment and knew how to create a very personal variable geometry from a ray of light. In any case, art was essential to him. It was his survival.”
A legacy to share
Today, Olivier Dassault’s artistic work is recognised by art collectors and professionals alike through galleries and museums. One of his works recently entered the collections of the Centre Pompidou. An endowment fund is currently being set up to manage Olivier Dassault’s works. “Our aim is to manage this collection of works properly, to ensure its continuity and to promote it, in particular by making it known to museums. We also plan to create a prize to support young photographers,” confirms Natacha Dassault. It’s a way of continuing her husband’s passion and remembering “the man who laughed with his eyes.”
“Abstract Expressions,” now at Galerie Indépendance of the Banque internationale à Luxembourg, 69 Route d’Esch, L-2953 Luxembourg. Open Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm, until 18 July. Free admission.
This article was originally published in .