One of the major figures in the tendency towards geometric abstraction in the mid-20th century, François Morellet was a giant of the avant-garde. His work investigated mathematical order and sequence and its anti-matter, chaos and chance. Unlike his American contemporary, Sol Lewitt, who exhibited similar concerns, Morellet often invested his work with a sense of humour. He would give to his paintings elaborate impersonal titles suggesting their lines were the result of some complex algorithm or numerical system, when half of the time the process was nothing of the sort and they were in fact “10 Lignes au Hasard”:literally 10 random lines.

Humour aside, Morellet easily fitted in to the artistic lineage that came from concrete art and fathered minimalism. His work pretended to the effect of being impersonal and neutral: once a rule of creation had been devised for a work Morellet played the role of a mere cipher to concept, and often delegated the execution to assistants. The artist’s fly-by-night, arbitrary rigour, however, marked the work with indelible personality.