Nagas is presenting Louise Janin: Cosmogrammes, 1953–1965, a series developed by Louise Janin (1893-1997), from May 13 to June 20.
A long span separates Louise Janin’s first exhibition in 1918, and her last in 1996. An early breakout at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in 1924, where Henri Matisse, Fernand Léger and Marie Laurencin were showing, made her a figure of the interwar Paris. Janin read, analyzed, and developed her own practice. She was a pioneer. Yet, her name remains largely overlooked today. At Nagas, we are proud to take up the torch, and contribute to her broader rediscovery. This exhibition at our gallery comes thirty years after her last, and one century after the beginning of her search on Cosmogrammes.
The Cosmogrammes were the result of Janin’s nearly lifelong research. Reading her texts about them is fascinating. Even though she produced most of the Cosmogrammes after the Second World War, this body of work began in the 1920s and evolved over time, like a thread running through her practice. What may appear at first as fluid or spontaneous is, in fact, the result of decades of experimentation. They are neither purely abstract nor descriptive; instead, they seem to propose their own internal order. Forms drift, accumulate, and settle into compositions that feel at once controlled and elusive.
To make the Cosmogrammes, Louise Janin took inspiration from marbled book covers in post-Renaissance France and Italy, Persian miniatures, and the decalcomania of the Surrealists. She used a mix of oil-based and water-based liquids combined with pigments on paper. Instead of dipping the paper into a mixture, she applied it directly onto the surface, then moved the paper to make forms appear intentionally. As she wrote, this technique requires more experience and skill than painting itself. The process of creating an artwork without a brush or a pencil is complex and requires both chance and dexterity. Within these compositions, metamorphic shapes suggest plants, landscapes, and flowers without losing their poetic appeal. These compositions became a bridge between nature and humanity, between mythologies and experiences, and between earth and cosmos.
