Pierre Alechinsky

PIERRE ALECHINSKY (Belgium, 1927).
"Pentagramme", 1992.
Etching and aquatint on copper on Fabriano paper with Chinese paper collage, copy XIX/XXIV.
Signed and numbered by hand.
Measurements: 76 x 56 cm.

Painter and engraver whose work combines characteristics of expressionism and surrealism, Pierre Alechinsky studied at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture et des Arts Décoratifs de la Cambre in Brussels (1944-48), showing special interest in book illustration and typography techniques. During this period he discovers the work of Henri Michaux, Jean Dubuffet and the surrealists. He begins to paint in 1947, and two years later he meets Christian Dotremont and joins the CoBrA group, participating in the first exhibition of the group, held in Amsterdam. Around this time he will work in collaboration with Karel Appel and other members. After the dissolution of the group he moved to Paris (1951), where he studied engraving techniques and came into contact with surrealism and Japanese calligraphy. It was in this city where he presented his first personal exhibition, in 1954. Around 1960 he makes the international leap and exhibits in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Italy, the United States, etc., while his fame grows. He continues to maintain close ties with Dotremont, as well as with André Breton. His international reputation is already consolidated in the seventies, and in 1983 he becomes a professor of painting at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In 1994 he was named Doctor Honoris Causa of the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Alechinsky has a vigorous, expressive style, close to abstraction, and from the mid-sixties he preferred to work with more immediate and fluid materials than oil, such as ink or acrylic. Currently his work is present in the MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Tate Gallery in London, the SMAK in Ghent, the Art Institute of Chicago and many others.