Gallery overview

Provenance Gal. Van de Loo, München
Simoens Gal., Antwerp




ALECHINSKY - FREEDOM AND HAPPINESS

"Would I start? Would I start with small lines, small crosses, small dots, with a big thing going from there to there, with a big spot that would watch me, with an idea? Would I start by stroking the canvas because I dream it’s already finished? No, I'm starting." (Alechinsky, Paris, September 1953)

And so Alechinsky starts this extraordinary work. He casually follows his feeling while he applies the acrylic to the canvas. The artist gives free rein to his hand: sometimes the lines are calm and elegant in warm ocher, sometimes he applies brusque, heavy brush strokes in bright blue and green. It is this same hand that tells Alechinsky’s fantastic stories and gives expression to the world as he experiences it. The result is a painting bursting with spontaneous energy. The gesture is explicitly present as an expressive tool, reminiscent of American abstract expressionism rather than of Cobra
The painting is a joyful color play evoking instant delight and cheerfulness. But coincidence and the subconscious also have an important role: the images veiled by the splendor of color are not at all unambiguous. Fortunately Alechinsky also loves to play with language, as illustrated by the poetic title which pushes us more or less in the direction of the painting’s story. Furthermore, we, as spectator, are challenged to use our own creativity and thus contribute to the creation of the final image. The image of the artist also becomes the image of the viewer.

"L’invention de la brouette" is the title of this oeuvre majeure – so to say in the words of the artist himself. Alechinsky does not make it easy for us as viewers. We can indeed see some wheels. Do the lines form a wheelbarrow? Does the mysterious head at the bottom represent the inventor? Maybe the artist wants to tell us about the invention of the wheel and he mingles title and image as a totum pro parte. Or maybe there is another approach that has to do with Alechinsky's trip to Lapland in 1974, where he makes this painting in the studio of his friend Bengt Lindström in Sundsvall (Sweden). The local stories and legends - which he loves so much - have certainly reached his ears and must have when creating this image. After all, it is up to the viewer and his imagination to complete the story.

Literature "Pierre Alechinsky - Les estampes de 1946 à 1972"
Yves Rivière 1973, cf. nrs. 364 t/m 368
"Pierre Alechinsky. The complete books" door
Ceuleers & Van de Velde, 2002, cf. nr. 30

Provenance Gal. Guy Pieters, Knokke

Exhibition "Karel Appel" Galerie Beyeler, Basel 1988, cat. nr. 36

Provenance Estate of George B. Lester, owner of Gal. George Lester, Roma
Shannon's, Milford, USA, 15th of June 2017, lot 8

Provenance Gal. Bergamini, Milano
Estate of George B. Lester, owner of Gal. George Lester, Roma
Shannon's, Milford, USA, 15th of June 2017, lot 6

Provenance Gal. Veranneman, Brussel

Provenance Gal. Veranneman, Brussels

Exhibition "Berrocal. Exposition de sculptures" Gal. Kriegel, Paris 1962 Literature "Berrocal" Denys Chevalier, Gal. Kriegel, Paris 1965, reprod.
"La Sculpture de Berrocal" Giuseppe Marchiori, La Connaissance, Brussels 1973, p. 52 reprod.
"Berrocal Catalogo General / Obras Recientes 1974" Miguel Berrocal, 1974, p. 68 reprod.
"Antologica Berrocal (1955-1984)" Ministero de Cultura, Madrid 1984, exhibition cat., p. 118 and p. 439 reprod.
"Retrospective Berrocal (1955-1985)" Centre Culturel de la Communauté Française Wallonie-Bruxelles, Brussels 1985, p. 26 reprod.
"Berrocal. 25 Ans de Sculptures editées 1964-1989" Miguel Berrocal, Artcurial, Paris 1989, p. 24 reprod.
"Berrocal" Jean Louis Ferrier, Éd. de la Différence, 1989, p. 129 reprod.
We would like to thank the Berrocal Foundation for their help when cataloging this work Provenance coll. Louis Bogaerts, Brussels ca. 1965-1995



For the majority of his iconographic works, Berrocal chose themes from the classical antiquity without losing sight of other sources of inspiration. His topics are male torsos, women figures, heads and portraits. In general it’s about the stylized, reconstructed, maimed parts of the human body. These anthropomorphic themes are apt to the most imaginative metamorphoses and have been a source of infinitive variation in art for thousands of years through the ages and for all art forms. If one studies objectively the artistic evolution of torsos, one can determine that after early baroque, during which the physical appearance is in contrast with the inner complexity and the abstraction, follows a more anatomical morphology “in which the organization of structures tend more towards the essence, the joints become more functional and the technical performances of the composition are concentrated on organic tensions” (Jean Dypréau, Brussels, 1983).

Exhibition "Hommage à Gaston Bertrand" Écuries du Roi, Brussels 1997 Literature "Gaston Bertrand" Serge Goyens de Heusch, Mercatorfonds 1997, p. 281 reprod.
"Gaston Bertrand. Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint" Caroline Bricmont & Serge Goyens de Heusch, Éd. Fondation Gaston Bertrand, Brussels 2001, nr. 1275, p. 166-167 reprod. Provenance Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner in 1974

Literature "Gaston Bertrand. Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint" Caroline Bricmont & Serge Goyens de Heusch, Éd. Fondation Gaston Bertrand, Brussels 2001, nr. 1263 reprod.

Literature "Gaston Bertrand. Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint" Caroline Bricmont & Serge Goyens de Heusch, Éd. Fondation Gaston Bertrand, Brussels 2001, nr. 1121 p. 147 reprod. Provenance Gal. Richard Foncke, Ghent (1969)