Berthet Aittouarès's booth in BRAFA 2026
Henri Michaux, 1964, Indian ink on paper, 75 x 105 cm
Zao Wou Ki, 1960, aquarelle et encre sur papier, 47 x 35 cm
Yann Bagot, Myriades, 2023, Indian ink and sea salt on paper, 76 x 56 cm
Mark Tobey, Landscape, 1967, Tempera on paper 10,2 x 19,3 cm
Galerie Berthet-Aittouarès, booth 79
Painting - writing from 1960 to nowadays
January 25th to February 1st, 2026
Halls 3, 4, and 8. Entry only via Hall 4
Place de Belgique 1, 1020 Brussels
Galerie BA–Berthet-Aittouarès, directed by Odile Aittouarès, has been participating in BRAFA for twelve years, sharing a booth with Galerie AB, run by her sister Agnès Aittouarès.
This year, Galerie Berthet-Aittouarès presents a selection centered on a resolutely gestural abstract expression. Faithful to its longstanding interest in line, gesture, and calligraphy—from Michaux to Zao Wou-Ki, Mark Tobey to Hans Hartung, as well as Vera Molnar and Yann Bagot—the gallery has consistently explored the richness of “sign expression”: a form of painting in which gesture becomes language and meditation.
Henri Michaux—an unclassifiable figure born in Namur in 1899 and who died in Paris in 1984—perfectly embodies this dialogue between poetic writing and painting. Rejecting all forms of “easy fulfillment,” he privileged experimentation and continually pushed beyond established boundaries. A great traveler, he discovered the Far East in 1930, a seminal journey that inspired Un Barbare en Asie (A Barbarian in Asia, 1931).
In 1949, his encounter with Zao Wou-Ki proved equally decisive. In 2004, for Chine Occident ou l’aventure du signe (China, the West, or the Adventure of the Sign), Michèle and Odile Aittouarès personally invited Zao Wou-Ki to enter into a dialogue with the work of his friend Michaux. Galerie Berthet-Aittouarès has since devoted several exhibitions and publications to the French-Belgian artist.
“Who has never wanted to grasp more—grasp better, grasp differently—both people and things, not with words, nor with phonemes, nor with onomatopoeia, but with graphic signs?”
In this dialogue between Asia and the West initiated by Henri Michaux, one essential figure had been missing: Mark Tobey (1890–1976). A major American artist—exhibited at MoMA as early as 1929 and often cited as an influence on Jackson Pollock—Tobey studied Chinese calligraphy and Zen painting in the 1930s. After extended stays in China and Japan, he ultimately chose to settle in Europe.
His work, frequently described as musical, finds a particular resonance in the painting presented this year by Galerie Berthet-Aittouarès at BRAFA. The work comes from the collection of Swiss pianist François Gaudard, who in 1967 performed the seventeen piano pieces composed by Mark Tobey.
From calligraphic gesture to dripping, the trajectory naturally leads to Hans Hartung, whom the gallery has represented for many years. The 1957 work presented this year bears witness to his close friendship with Zao Wou-Ki: Hartung here employs a Chinese brush given to him by Zao Wou-Ki himself.
Drawing was also profoundly reinvented by Vera Molnar, a pioneer of digital art, who produced the first computer-generated drawings using a plotter in the 1960s. She was celebrated in 2024 with a major solo exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, on the eve of her 100th birthday.
The exhibition concludes with the youngest artist presented, Yann Bagot (born 1983). In works where he becomes one with the seascape, Bagot explores the reactions of ink, salt, and water to “paint” or “write” the sea.
Hans Hartung, 1957, Mixed media on paper mounted on canvas, 12 x 17.5 cm
Vera Molnar, Structure + Horizontales, 1969,
Drawing on a single light table on Benson France paper, 31 x 31 cm