Simon Hantaï: Pliage Simon Hantaï found his signature artistic style by using the 'Pliage' method (folding). It consists of scrunching up a piece of canvas, painting it and then unfolding it to discover the shapes produced, partly by chance. The revealed white spaces might take on a major role: Hantaï: Whites 1973-5 This automatic process relates to Surrealist practice and to Freud. An anecdote tells us that in 1952 Simon Hantaï deposited a small work in front of André Breton's doorway. Its title was "Regarde" (Look). Breton welcomed Hantaï into the fold and he exhibited at the Surrealist Gallery 'L'Etoile Scellée'. A few years later Hantaï quit the movement. A big artistic influence on Hantaï's art was Matisse. There are several late Matisses on show here: Henri Matisse: White seaweed on a red and green background, Vence 1947 Henri Matisse: Blue nude IV Nice 1952 (Musée d'Orsay) Matisse, by the end of his life, had devised a way of painti...