Pierre Alechinsky
(1927 - ) |
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Art Work
| Name: |
Pierre Alechinsky |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Brussels, Belgium |
| Nationality: |
Belgian |
| Birth: |
1927 |
| Death: |
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| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
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| Style: |
CoBrA |
| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painter
Engraver
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Biography
Pierre Alechinsky attended the l'Ecole Nationale Superieure d'Architecture et des Arts Decoratifs de La Cambre, Brussels where he studied illustration techniques, printing and photography. He participated both with the Cobra exhibitions and went to Paris to study engraving at Atelier 17 under the guidance of a master, Stanley William Hayter in 1951. In 1954 he had his first exhibition in Paris and started to become interested in oriental calligraphy. During the early 1950s he became the Paris correspondent for the Japanese journal Bokubi (the joy of ink), then in 1955, encouraged by Henri Storck and Luc de Heusch, he left for Japan with Micky, his wife. He exhibited Night, 1952 (Ohara Museum, Kurashiki) and made a film: Japanese Calligraphy. His paintings are related to Tachisme, Abstract expressionism, and Lyrical Abstraction.
In 1958 under the protective wing of the Galerie de France, the large format pictures came easily; such as The Great Transparencies, 1959 (reference to Andre Breton) and Alice Grows Up, 1961 (reference to Lewis Carroll). Passing from abstraction, a moment explored, to a more freely descriptive image that moves from the face to the monster. The connection to James Ensor becomes apparent (Homage to James Ensor 1956), The Parable of the Blind Men 1958, Cloud in Trousers 1957 (SMAK, Ghent): the themes of propagation, swarming and finally that of opening.
By 1960 he had exhibited in London, Berne and at the Venice Biennial, and then in Pittsburgh, New York, Amsterdam and Silkeborg as his international reputation grew.
From 1961, he took frequent trips to New York where the Chinese painter Walasse Ting, whom he had met in Paris in the fifties, would introduce him to the possibilities of acrylic paint. Alechinsky was 37 in 1965 when he painted, Central Park, the first acrylic painting with a central subject surrounded by remarks in the margins. Margin and Center, was the theme of a large one man show at the Guggenheim, New York in 1987. Progressively abandoning oil paint for the versatility of his new medium, with which he no longer worked vertically but "in the Chinese style", upon the floor.
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Samples of Work
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