FORT COLLINS, CO.- The Gregory Allicar Museum of Art presents two new temporary exhibitions: Cercle et Carré and the International Spirit of Abstract Art, on display in the museum’s Griffin Foundation Gallery, January 21 – April 11, 2020; and Simple Truths: Still Life Paintings by Pierre Daura, on display in the museum’s Works on Paper Gallery, February 8 – May 16, 2020. General museum hours are Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m., Thursday until 7:30 p.m., and all exhibitions and programs are free and open to the public. The museum is located in the University Center for the Arts at 1400 Remington St.

Cercle et Carré and the International Spirit of Abstract Art focuses on the influential but short-lived artistic group known as Cercle et Carré (Circle and Square), which was founded in 1929 by Belgian artist and critic Michel Seuphor, Uruguayan-Catalan artist Joaquín Torres-García, and Catalan-American artist Pierre Daura. Although short-lived, it served as a catalyst for a number of other important international artistic movements of the 1930s, such as Abstraction-Création in Paris and Torres-Garcia’s Circulo y Cuadrado in South America. Championing geometrically abstracted art at a pivotal moment in the history of abstraction, Cercle et Carré left a substantial legacy.

Consisting of about 80 artists, Cercle et Carré was formed in opposition to Surrealism and to “promote structure and construction.” According to the exhibition’s curator, Lynn Boland, “The group was remarkable at the time for its emphasis on the universality of abstraction, and for its democratic nature. Its members were male and female, emerging and established from Western and Eastern Europe, North and South America, and Russia.” Organized around the artists included in the group’s sole 1930 show, this exhibition includes sixty works, shedding light on under-appreciated artists while also presenting major figures such as Le Corbusier, Alexandra Exter, Wassily Kandinsky, Fernand Léger, Joaquín Torres-García, and many others.

Pierre Daura (1896-1976) was born on the island of Minorca, Spain. He grew up in Barcelona and moved to Paris as a young man in 1914, first working as a studio assistant to the Post-Impressionist Émile Bernard and helping to champion the work of Vincent Van Gogh. Organized by the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art, Simple Truths: Still Life Paintings by Pierre Daura celebrates a major gift of works of art donated by the artist’s daughter, Martha R. Daura, and is presented in conjunction with the Cercle et Carré exhibition, the group Daura co-founded. Centered around a group of still-life watercolor paintings from the mid-20th century, the exhibition will also present examples of Daura’s work in other media, such as printmaking, drawing, and wood carving.