In the late ’60s and early ’70s the “Supports-Surfaces” group provided a large proportion of the subject matter for the intellectual and artistic press in France. A large proportion of the most interesting work done today by young artists can be traced to these origins which had at their center Claude Viallatas a prime mover. After 1966, his research was directed towards exploring the material components of painting (canvas, stretcher, installations, and the qualities and interrelationships of these elements) by using a single, repeated form on an unstretched canvas. Although Viallat’s works