© Gregoire Michonze estate

Village People draws on both surrealistic and realistic elements as two nude women are depicted mixing casually with their apparently indifferent but soberly-dressed neighbours in a rural setting painted with a heightened sense of colour. In a 1959 letter to the British art critic Peter Stone, Michonze wrote: 'My subjects have no subject. They exist only for a poetic end. If the poetry is there, the canvas is complete. No histories. Only pure poetry, preferably untitled.'