In Memoriam: Michel Quarez (1938, Damascus - 8 December 2021, Paris)

For thirty years, the Stedelijk Museum consistently purchased posters by Michel Quarez. Ada Stroeve, my predecessor as curator of graphic design, who met him in the early 1990s, said to me: “You really ought to buy his work, he’s exceptionally talented and needs to be supported.” So, we always visited Quarez during our annual trip to Paris, a tradition I continued after Ada’s retirement. In 2000, she asked Quarez to make the poster for her farewell exhibition, Dans la Rue.

A visit to Michel was an adventure. A lengthy metro trip to Saint-Denis, the northern suburb that made international news after the attack on the Bataclan, that takes you from the broad, affluent streets of Paris to those of this impoverished neighbourhood: women in lavishly colourful African dress, youths hanging around, and the palpable aura of hopelessness. 

An alley in the Rue Auguste Poullain led to an overgrown garden where Michel lived in a modest house. A kitchen, a corner packed with innumerable rolls of posters and a studio as colourful as Michel’s posters. There, we spent hours deep in discussion, drinking tea, while our host produced one poster after another. Michel was a delightful man who talked passionately about the art and artists he admired, and about abuses in the art world and society.

The son of a French professional soldier stationed in Syria, Michel was born in Damascus in 1938. Back in France, he trained at the l’École Nationale Superiéure des Arts Décoratifs. In 1961, he spent a year studying under the godfather of the Polish poster, Henryk Tomaszewski (1914-2005), who taught at the academy in Warsaw, where the later members of the famed French design collective Grapus (Pierre Bernard, Gérard Paris-Clavel, Alec Jordan) also trained. Michel was also briefly a member of Grapus.

It was not until the late 1980s, after a career in advertising and after working mainly as an illustrator, that Michel started designing posters, most of them screen-printed. Colour—bold and vibrant—was a hallmark of Michel Quarez’s designs. Vivid green and blue, neon pink and sizzling yellow—hues that catch your eye on the street. He refused to add logos, although made a rare exception for the poster for his exhibition at the Stedelijk in 2006. Sometimes his compositions were purely linear in black and white now and then a solitary black line appears on areas of colour. Michel’s work always centres around people, and Saint-Denis, with its predominantly immigrant community, was a constant source of inspiration for him. A socially and politically engaged artist, Quarez frequently addressed the issues faced by this banlieue: integration, discrimination, gay liberation, youth care, illegality, the fight against AIDS, and unemployment. He also created designs inspired by community events like the opening of a swimming pool, a campaign against a polluting company, groups of unemployed youth loitering on the street, and posters for football championships played at venues such as the Stade de France in Saint-Denis. The little man who uses his own head as a ball seems funny and whimsical at first, but sets us thinking: who loses their head playing football?

It is sad to have to get used to the idea that I can no longer travel to Saint-Denis to meet Michel, who always warmly welcomed you from his garden. He was a special person, an incomparable artist whose art is a wonderful continuation of the tradition of the great French painting poster designers such as De Lautrec, PAL, Cassandre, Loupot and Savignac, much admired by Michel. He used the poster not only to descry social abuses but also to make us mindful of simple, everyday joys. The bus shelters of Saint-Denis will never again dazzle the eye with explosive colour now that Michel is no longer with us. 

Carolien Glazenburg, former curator graphic design SMA