PARIS.- PIASA will offer the Paul and Jacqueline Canfrère Collection on Wednesday, September 23, 2026, presenting a private French collection that reflects a passionate and highly personal engagement with the artistic movements of the second half of the 20th century.

Comprising 70 lots and estimated at €1.1 million to €1.6 million, the collection brings together works associated with several of the major currents that reshaped post-war art, including Narrative Figuration, Supports/Surfaces and French post-war abstraction. The sale will take place at 6 p.m.

Among the leading works is Dado’s Le jardinier, painted in 1962. The oil on canvas, signed and dated at upper right, measures 114 x 145 cm and carries an estimate of €50,000 to €70,000. The artist’s organic and phantasmagorical universe forms one of the pillars of the collection.

Florence Latieule, Director of PIASA’s Modern & Contemporary Art Department, described the collection as the result of an eclectic eye shaped by a couple’s deep interest in post-war art. She noted that the selection brings together “the silence of Degottex,” “the cries of Maryan or Dado,” the geometric rigor of Van Velde and Lanskoy, and the ironic, graphic intelligence of Hervé Télémaque.

The collection was assembled by Paul and Jacqueline Canfrère beginning in the 1970s. Paul Canfrère, described as a country veterinarian, devoted much of his free time to art. Working closely with Jacqueline, he built a collection guided not by speculation or fashion, but by pleasure, curiosity and personal conviction.





His collecting path took him through leading Paris galleries such as Louis Carré & Cie, Ariel, Jean Fournier and Claude Bernard, as well as into conversation with important dealers including Mathias Fels. From these encounters emerged a coherent and intimate group of works, reflecting both shared enthusiasm and sustained support for the artists of their time.

A major highlight of the sale is Joseph Sima’s Sans titre (Composition) from 1957, an oil on canvas signed and dated on the reverse. Measuring 80 x 100 cm, it is estimated at €150,000 to €250,000. Jean-Paul Riopelle’s Sans titre (Composition) from 1964, an oil on canvas signed at lower right and measuring 64 x 80 cm, is estimated at €120,000 to €180,000.

The sale will also feature Hervé Télémaque’s Été from 1964, an acrylic on canvas measuring 100 x 81 cm, estimated at €30,000 to €40,000. Télémaque’s presence underscores the importance of Narrative Figuration within the collection, a field also represented by artists such as Valerio Adami, Erró and Maryan.

Geer van Velde occupies a special place in the auction. The sale includes a notable group of five canvases from the 1970s and 1980s. Paul Canfrère was close to the painter and his wife, giving these works a provenance and emotional resonance that go beyond their formal significance. One of the works, Composition, an oil on canvas measuring 146 x 134 cm, is estimated at €30,000 to €40,000.

The collection also reflects the strength of expressionism and abstraction through works by Simon Hantaï, André Lanskoy, Jean Degottex, Riopelle and Sima. Lanskoy’s Sans titre (Composition en noir et blanc), an oil on canvas measuring 96 x 195 cm, is estimated at €40,000 to €60,000.

From the rigor of abstraction to the subversive force of Art Brut and the energy of Narrative Figuration, the Canfrère Collection offers a vivid portrait of a period marked by experimentation and artistic freedom. It also includes works connected to Figuration Libre, with the raw energy of Robert Combas, as well as graphic or pictorial works by Sam Szafran and Unica Zürn.

For PIASA, the sale is not simply the dispersal of a collection of rare works. It is the presentation of a life shaped by looking, choosing and living with art. The Canfrère Collection stands as the record of a couple’s private aesthetic journey and of a collector’s direct, authentic encounter with the creative matter of his time.

Through this auction, collectors will have the opportunity to enter a world formed by conviction rather than trend, and to revisit a moment when post-war artists were redefining the possibilities of painting, figuration and abstraction.