Embedded Files
Jacques Nestlé
Saarbrücken (1907 - 1991) Paris
Le Désir Irrépressible
Jacques Nestlé (1907–1991) aimed to explore painting in a free and unbridled style. It was likely for this reason that he shied away from public exhibitions of his work. The title of this exhibition: "Le Désir Irrépressible" is taken from a quote from the artist:
"Poussé par un désir irrépressible de peindre au-delà des conceptions rationnelles" - which translated to English means: "Driven by an irrepressible desire to paint beyond rational concepts."
Jacques Nestlé was born Arthur Ludwig Jakob Nestle in Saarbrücken, Germany. Moving to Paris at 16, he worked in a lithography workshop, where he met Henri Matisse, who noticed him and encouraged his drawings. He moved back to Germany in 1925, to Berlin, where he absorbed Expressionism and Bauhaus influence. An outspoken anti-Nazi voice, he fled Berlin and Nazi persecution in 1933, eventually settling permanently in Paris by 1935 under his adopted name.
In Paris he worked as an interior designer for SNCF and contributed to the 1937 International Exposition of Arts and Techniques in Modern Life, while painting privately in a post-Cubist style. Notably, the gallerist and art dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler — an early proponent of Picasso, Braque and Gris — offered to also support him, but Nestlé declined. By the 1950s his work evolved toward Lyrical Abstraction, inspired by the styles of Bram van Velde (Dutch) and Robert Motherwell (American). He died in poverty in 1991, largely unknown — a significant overlooked voice in postwar modernism.
Expo dates: June 12 - September 30, 2026
Works
The greatest care has been taken to clean and preserve the artworks. A cleaning and restoration report is provided, in addition to a certificate of authenticity. The frames are custom made with archival non-acidic materials and completed with anti-reflective anti-UV 92 grade museum glass. In addition, the artworks are mounted with a level 5 stretching technique using Japanese tape to remove any wrinkles in the paper.
All works are available for sale unless marked SOLD.
Untitled
1950s
Gouache on fine art paper
The composition splits into two distinct zones across a luminous off-white ground. Left, a dense accumulation of massing forms — deep navy, black, teal, and a warm brown diagonal — builds weight and complexity, like terrain compressed into a corner. Right, breathing space opens around a loose ochre ring, its interior marked by three dark strokes that suggest a face, a dial, or a sun. A vivid blue diagonal slices through the left mass, and a small zigzag of cerulean floats free above — a spark of wit in an otherwise grounded work. Gravity and levity are held in careful balance. Stamped monogram "J.N" lower right.
Sheet: 75 × 108 cm
Framed: 90 × 123 × 5 cm
SOLD
Untitled
1950s
Gouache on fine art paper, mixed media
This work distills Jacques Nestlé's gestural language to its essentials: dense black gouache brushstrokes built into massing, architectural forms that hover between abstraction and figuration. Broad, confidently loaded strokes anchor the composition vertically, like pillars or standing figures, while negative space keeps the field breathing. Against the saturated blacks, three small, deliberate mixed-media accents — a clipped crimson, a deep oxblood, a warm ochre — punctuate the monochrome with quiet tension. The brushwork carries an ink-painting sensibility: spontaneous yet structured, each mark an existential trace. Restrained and balanced, it exemplifies Nestlé's affinity with postwar lyrical abstraction, where the gesture itself becomes the subject. Studio stamp "J.N. Nestlé" lower left.
Sheet: 108 × 75 cm
Framed: 123 × 90 × 5 cm
Untitled
1950s
Gouache on fine art paper
A sweeping horizontal field becomes a stage for colliding planes and arcing linear gestures. Bold primaries — cobalt blue, cadmium red, orange — jostle against deep burgundy, mauve, mustard, and black, all suspended across an open white space. A solitary earth-toned disc anchors the upper left like a sun or moon, while kinetic grey lines slash and branch across the composition, suggesting movement, tension, perhaps landscape glimpsed at speed. The work pulses with chromatic energy and spatial restlessness — forms that never quite settle, never fully resolve, held in suspension between figuration and pure abstraction. Stamped monogram "J.N" lower left.
Sheet: 75 × 105 cm
Framed: 90 × 120 × 5 cm
SOLD
Untitled
1950s
Gouache on fine art paper, mixed media
Black dominates — dense, velvety, almost total — yet the composition breathes through what it withholds. Two white forms rise from the lower field like lit windows or standing figures, one capped by a loose silver-grey disc that hovers with the weight of a moon. A small turquoise fleck punctuates the upper darkness; a yellow accent and rust fragment nestle low, warm against the cool prevailing tone. The forms suggest presences without declaring them — sentinel, nocturnal, quietly monumental. There is something watchful here, even ceremonial. Light doesn't illuminate so much as persist, holding its ground against the surrounding dark. Stamped monogram "J.N" lower left.
Sheet: 65 × 50 cm
Framed: 76 × 61 × 3 cm
Untitled
1950s
Gouache on fine art paper, mixed media
Radical economy governs this composition. Against a vast, breathing white ground, a spare vocabulary of forms — two black rectangles, a bold horizontal stroke, a weathered earth-toned disc, a small cobalt accent, a dark lower square — are distributed with near-musical precision. The upper left is dense and weighted; the lower half opens into silence. A solitary blue rectangle at the right edge introduces just enough warmth to prevent the black from dominating. The disc floats, neither anchored nor adrift. It is a work of confident restraint — every omission as deliberate as every mark. Stamped monogram "J.N" lower right.
Sheet: 105 × 75 cm
Framed: 120 × 90 × 5 cm
SOLD
Untitled
1950s
Gouache on fine art paper
Dense and nocturnal, this work draws the eye into layered depths of blue and black. Dense fragments emerge and recede — grids, arches, rectangular masses — as if glimpsed through a window or across a shadowed interior. Black gouache is applied in broad, confident strokes, its opacity creating a rich surface that alternates between flatness and perceived depth. A warm ochre band anchors the right edge, a smaller rust accent breaks the lower centre, both providing just enough warmth to offset the prevailing cool darkness.
Sheet: 65 × 50 cm
Framed: 76 × 61 × 3 cm
Untitled
1950s
Gouache on fine art paper
Line and composition divide the picture plane into two distinct registers. The upper portion is architectural and angular — a structure of crossing black strokes that reads convincingly as a painter's easel, taut and geometric. Below, fluid contours emerge: the weight of body, the gentle arc of a shoulder — possibly the artist himself or another figure, rendered in loose, economical line. The two registers meet in productive tension. Crimson accents animate the monochrome throughout — corner fragments, a bold central disc, a small flame — injecting urgency and warmth into what might otherwise be pure graphic restraint. Studio stamp "J.N. Nestlé" lower right.
Sheet: 108 × 75 cm
Framed: 123 × 90 × 5 cm
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