This abstract painting is by Michel Stoffel, one of the most important representatives of the Luxembourg School of Non-Figurative Art.

Between 1931 and 1933, Stoffel studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Weimar. In 1933, he briefly attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels. In the 1930s, he worked as a draughtsman and engraver. From that time on, drawing often dominated his works. From 1933 to 1961 he participated in the salon of the Cercle Artistique de Luxembourg (C.A.L.), which he chaired from 1939 to 1949. He was forbidden to paint or exhibit during the Second World War. After the war, he played a major role in the introduction of Modern Art in Luxembourg.

Although he had been an Expressionist in the 1940s, around 1950 Stoffel became one of Luxembourg’s first abstract artists. Figuration gave way to abstraction. Together with other abstract painters, he founded the Salon des Iconomaques, which held two exhibitions in Luxembourg, one in 1954 and the other five years later, in 1959.

Our painting, entitled Composition E 10/58, is a magnificent example of Geometric Abstraction. After breaking up figurative elements into flat shapes of colour, Stoffel returned to geometric and flat shapes after 1954. In our work, the geometric shapes give the impression of paper sheets that move, as if blown by the wind in an imaginary space. In other works of this period, the various forms are multiplied, creating a more dynamic composition.