Xavier KREBS (1923-2013) Threshold, 1974 Oil on canvas. Signed and dated lower right. Signed and dated on the back. 116 x 81 cm }" [...] Krebs sought to explore different themes and, in the 70s, painted some rather pure, austere canvases, composed of broad horizontal planes in the manner of Rothko. These meditative paintings heralded the long and superb Empreintes series. [...] Through various forms [...] Krebs always seems to be searching for a personal language that would finally satisfy him, far from all fashions and expressing both his solitary quest and the intensity of his inner life. Thus was born, in the 80s, the astonishing Empreintes suite, which forms the living heart of his work. The fluidity of acrylics enables him to create highly homogeneous backgrounds on which he can then bring out all the poetic imagination he carries within him: tall dark columns or illuminated by that famous Indian pink he loves, fine indecipherable writing or stamps of light or colored stains". Geneviève Bonnefoi, Beaulieu, May 2007, in Catalogue d'exposition Xavier Krebs, Cinquante ans de peinture, Abbaye de Beaulieu, Centre d'Art contemporain, June 10 - September 30, 2007.