Tony Gonnet & Cassie Guy – Lost and Found: A Correspondence Transcending Time

Les Yeux de Monde is pleased to announce the first U.S. presentation of works by French modernist Tony Gonnet (1916–2004), whose six-decade practice evolved from early Surrealist influence to a refined geometric abstraction recognized through French museum holdings and scholarly texts by luminaries including Jean Genet, Pierre Courthion, and Jean Cassou.

 

The exhibition features a focused selection of estate works chosen by Virginia-based painter Cassie Guy, who discovered Gonnet’s work through providence and developed a close connection with his widow, Hatice Gonnet. During multiple trips to France, Guy immersed herself in the studios and spaces where Gonnet worked, fostering a sustained, transhistorical dialogue with the artist and his legacy.

 

Alongside Gonnet’s pieces in this exhibition are new works by Guy, created in response to the former’s life, studio, and enduring modernist vision. Drawing from archival material, photographs, memory, and imagination, Guy’s paintings are dreamlike meditations on Gonnet’s practice that unfold as a living correspondence across time.