"I hope to show that the medium of mosaic is not painting with stones and not sculpture, but an art the essential quality of which is luminosity" a quote by Jeanne Reynal in the book The Mosaics of Jeanne Reynal. She acknowledged that the creation of Haghia Sophia, the great church in Istanbul, Turkey, during Byzantium times is the supreme example of architecture adorned with gold mosaic. From then on mosaic work started to change. During the Renaissance, the master painters designed mosaic paintings for churches and official buildings. They buried the quality of light by putting the stones close together and producing copies of paintings.

It was not until Antonio Gaudi created the Parque Guell in Barcolona, Spain in 1910-11 that the unique in mosaics was again employed. Along came Jeanne Reynal in the early 50's to Paris. She received conventional training by working in the studio of Boris Anrep. He designed the floor of The Bank of England and Jeanne worked on the project. She also was influenced by Seurat's paintings, which she said helped to develop her concept of the direct mosaic. She also later acknowledged the help of Ashile Gorky as a great teacher and friend.

The direct method consisted of working on a prepared ground where she prepared certain kinds of cement and used found rocks, stones, shells and ordered marble and other semi-precious stones. She did all her own work and put down the stones in different kinds of patterns or designs - they were sometimes just thrown down and then set in. There was space between them and the light glittered and shown on these portable textured surfaces. A special luminous environment was created for the free standing space dividers and wall pieces. Jeanne Reynal transported the imagination beyond "objects". She made the surfaces of these tactile works breathe.

She is in numerous museum collections: Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and numerous museums all over America. She has had many public commissions and is in many private collections. Her work is made for posterity and I have yet to find some-one who wants to sell these precious gems.

Jeanne Reynal was also a patron of artists here and was instrumental in bringing artists to America during the Second World War and saving their lives.

Anita Shapolsky