On the 1st of March 1974 Jean Hélion writes: ‘I draw with my knowledge, I colour with my passion, I compose with dreams’ (Carnets, 1 March 1974).
Hélion has always been an artist that fully affirms his liberty and individuality. He is abstract from 1929, initiated into Cubism by Torres-Garcia, where he rejoins the group Abstraction-Creation, founded by artists such as the Delaunay couple, Auguste Herbin, Theo van Doesburg or Torres-Garcia to defend and promote abstraction.
Starting from the late 1930s, Hélion's painting increasingly became more figurative. His series of men walking city streets in the second half of the 1940s, full of Hélion's symbolism (hats, canes, umbrellas and newspaper letters) becomes one of his most iconic.
As such, it is no surprise that Hélion reprises this universe in "Sortie de P...en catastrophe" from 1977. His later period is an allegory of his own art and career. During this time, as abstraction had seem to have won, Hélion gains the admiration of a new group of young artists : founders of the Figuration narrative members such as Eduardo Arroyo or Gilles Aillaud, or the American Pop Art group. For one of the artists traversing the 20th century, the 1970s represent Hélion's consecration.
