Hantaï decided to break with surrealism and he abandoned figurative painting. Then, he developed gestural painting abstractions improved by the work of Jackson Pollock and other American abstract Expressionists. In 1956, Hantaï had his second personal exhibition at galerie Kléber, the gallery owned by Jean Fournier who was a huge support and his French dealer during his life-time. Later, he moved away from the gestural language and begun covering the canvas by means of juxtaposed daubs of paint or handwriting. In 1958-1959, Hantaï created two masterpieces Ecriture rose (collection of MNAM, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris) and A Galla Placida ( collection of Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris), two monumental paintings with two different ambitions which marked a new kind of pictorial space as well as a deep creative originality.