Coinciding with the Simon Hantaï (1922-2008) retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in Paris paying tribute to French painter of Hungarian origin, the catalog of the artist's donation to the Modern Art Museum of Paris is reprinted. This book presents 15 paintings, conceived as a set and given by Simon Hantaï  to the Museum in 1997. The five large-scale paintings and ten small formats, created between 1950 and 1991, come with notes from the artist. These works present his experiments on the surface of the canvas and what he refers to as "the folding as method"  developed around the 1960's. Hantaï applies different techniques of folding, scrunching, and collage on the canvas. With the "Mariales" series, he disrupts the codes by covering blindly with color a surface that has been previously folded which reveals itself when it is unfolded and mounted on a stretcher frame. 

A major figure of abstraction and modern art, Simon Hantaï was associated with the French support-surface movement.

This book includes several essays by Suzanne Pagé, who was director of the Modern Art Museum of Paris at the time of the donation, Alain Cueff, and Marcelin Pleynet.