Thierry Lefort by Yoyo Maeght

Thierry Lefort

By Yoyo Maeght

Creating is a risky gamble. The artist moves forward alone, driven by their conviction alone. Then comes the moment when the work must leave the studio to face the public eye. To the artist, the creation. To me, the audacity to exhibit it. It takes a rare trust, almost an invisible complicity, for one of the most beautiful adventures of all to begin: that of a shared vision. This is how my grandfather, Aimé Maeght, revealed Miró, Calder, Chillida, Tàpies, Giacometti, and so many others. Aimé believed in them as much as the artists believed in him. 

To defend artists, no challenge is insurmountable. Boundless commitment is in my DNA. I firmly believe that art is worth fighting for, worth taking risks for, worth striving for the impossible. I managed to exhibit a Japanese artist at the Beijing Imperial Museum, right in the heart of the Forbidden City! I brought Miró to the Pera Museum in Istanbul. I spent days and nights meticulously recreating Gasiorowski's monumental installations for the Centre Pompidou, and I secured the inclusion of a Turkish artist and an Italian artist in the most demanding Chinese museums. I championed unknown artists who subsequently became some of the most brilliant figures in international contemporary art. Having this eye, the one that intuits before knowing, cannot be learned. It is passed down. My grandfather taught me that art is not a matter of fashion, but of truth.

On the day we met, I was immediately struck the moment I crossed the threshold of the studio—not by the light streaming through the skylight, but by a singular identity that imposed itself with undeniable force. Here, everything breathes painting, true painting, the kind that readily dispenses with words. I instantly recognized in Thierry Lefort's work this authenticity, this freedom that seeks not to please, but simply to be. The artist speaks little, and so do I that day, so absorbed is my attention elsewhere, captivated by demanding works that require time and silence. These are indeed strange subjects: factory smoke, car carcasses, scrap metal, the banks of the Seine, railway yards… Fragments of raw reality, the objects of compositions of rare precision.

This determination evokes the Old Masters in a new approach. No extravagance in means: stretcher bars, canvas, oil. Nothing else. Yet, here is a pictorial expression I had never seen before. Each color seems to find its place by necessity, and each canvas is a world unto itself. Lefort doesn't paint cities or landscapes—he paints what these places reveal.

During this first meeting, Thierry shared some details of his life with me: how he arrived in the United States with just a few dollars in his pocket, the shock of discovering the work of the artist Diebenkorn, and his pivotal friendship with the painter Joe Blaustein, a key witness to the San Francisco School. But above all, what captivated him there and continues to draw him back is this ordinary Los Angeles, the one no one looks at or sees: deserted parking lots, traffic signs, freeways, streets overgrown with unruly vegetation. And, above all, there is this new light. And, strangely enough, in this California, the shadows aren't gray but blue, a blue so deep it seems to encompass the entire sky.

From that moment, a swift decision. An exhibition. Immediately. Not in six months. Now. No hesitation. I wanted to reveal Thierry Lefort's art to everyone. To prove that painting still holds unexplored territories, new emotions, unsuspected beauties. Barely two months later, I organized Thierry Lefort's first solo gallery exhibition in Paris. Collectors responded enthusiastically, delighted to rediscover painting. Had they grown weary of incomprehensible art? Did they long for that instinctive joy in the face of beauty, even when it takes difficult or even shocking forms? Lefort's paintings reminded them why they had begun collecting Miró, Chagall, Monory, Basquiat, or perhaps Combas… This first exhibition was a thunderbolt in the Parisian contemporary art world.

I have a special, almost friendly, relationship with collectors and art lovers. They are fellow travelers, accomplices in this adventure of discovery. When I call them to present a new artist, they are usually there. But will they follow me this time in such a radical choice, so far removed from current trends? Because it's not just an exhibition I'm offering them, it's a statement of principle. In 1967, Claude Roy wrote: "Almost no one dares to acknowledge today, or dares to say what is nevertheless obvious: that the most indirect forms of art are also those that best allow Imposters to conceal their lack of being." Here, no imposture is possible. To believe in painting again is to believe in the continuation of the adventure of art history, in matter, in vision, in materialized thought. Thierry Lefort doesn't hide behind concepts; he stands there, facing the canvas, as if engaging in a fair fight. This absolute sincerity is as disconcerting as it is captivating.

The following year, the city of Burbank, in Los Angeles County, commissioned Thierry Lefort to create a 150-square-meter mural. Before tackling this monumental challenge, Thierry isolated himself in the desert, heading to the Grand Canyon. This confrontation with the vastness of nature was not an escape, but a preparation. Faced with these spaces that defy human comprehension, he learned to think on a monumental scale. How to translate infinity onto a finite surface? These days spent painting in the stark silence of the desert were a form of active meditation, a mental and physical conditioning.

A year later, new canvases, a new space for our second Parisian exhibition. Thierry's palette is now in technicolor: incandescent oranges, dazzling turquoises, pinks never before dared. Blue shadows are now his signature; they are not voids, but presences, masses of color that structure the space and carry the light. More than a technique, it's a vision. The paintings that emerge are neither French nor American: they belong to this territory that Lefort has created for himself.

Thierry Lefort is no longer a discovery; he's a given. But I remain cautious. What's needed now is to consolidate, to delve deeper. Exhibitions follow one after another—art centers, galleries. What immediately strikes you is the artist's newfound confidence. He dares to work on monumental scale. Thierry Lefort now exhibits regularly in Los Angeles, the city he has been painting for seven years with a loving devotion. It's the long-awaited Californian consecration. American collectors are discovering, astonished, that a Frenchman has managed to capture the essence of their city and create works that, while undeniably Los Angeles, constantly engage with abstraction. These canvases don't describe the city; they transfigure it. It's Los Angeles and it's no longer Los Angeles, it's painting in its pure state where figuration is only a pretext to explore the territories of form and color.

As 2025 draws to a close, there's no need to travel the world to see recent works, but the challenge is no less immense. The Beffroi Cultural Center in Montrouge, this iconic venue that has hosted the renowned Salon de Montrouge since 1955, is hosting a major event by opening its 1,000 square meters to a single artist. Thierry Lefort is presenting a retrospective of twenty years of his work, spanning France and California, with occasional exhibitions in Paris and Rome. This is a unique opportunity to appreciate the journey he has undertaken, the evolution of his style, and the gradual development of a signature style.

A new chapter begins, fueled by this complicity which has continued to grow since our first meeting in this light-filled workshop.