Pierre Soulages (b.1919) is a French painter known for his involvement in the postwar Abstract Expressionist and Art Informel movements.  From the 1940s to the 1970s, Soulages’ painting and printmaking work were characterized by thick black calligraphic brushstrokes against lighter backgrounds. Soulage's strong use of non-representational and calligraphic forms are said to have been influenced by East Asian calligraphy as well as prehistoric and Romanesque art near his childhood home in Rodez, France. The Outrenoir (Beyond Black) series of black monochromatic paintings beginning in 1979 were a pivotal endeavor for Soulages. The methodical layers of thick black paint were applied by scraping, digging, and so forth in order to evoke a smooth or rough surface on the canvas. The resulting texture of the paint either absorbed or rejected light and therefore disrupted the surface of the painting. As a result of Outrenoir, Soulage has become known as “the painter of black and light”. Soulages became the first contemporary artist to be shown at St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum in 2001. He donated 500 works to the Musée Soulages that opened in his hometown in 2014.