PIERRE ALECHINSKY | INCONNU SUR LA CARTE [UNKNOWN ON THE MAP]

Lefebre Gallery, New York

Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1976

Painter and filmmaker Pierre Alechinsky is best known for his work as an important member of CoBrA (Copenhagen Brussels Amsterdam), a movement taking place in Europe in the 1950s and 60s that later formed part of Guy Debord’s Internationale Situationniste group. 

“Cobra’s originality in the context of postwar art informel lies in its fusion of typically Surrealist elements—automatism, primitivism—and its visionary quality characteristic of Northern European expressionism. Despite its brief duration as an organized group from 1948–51, Cobra was immensely influential because of these roots and assumed a significance that was not only artistic but also more broadly cultural, political, and social. Many of the works… evince imaginative, unrestrained chromatic gestural qualities and an expressive spontaneity of great evocative power. All this takes on a cogent relevance today, in part because of the transnational nature of the movement, which would prove crucial, in subsequent decades, for the evolution of global art.”

(Francesca Pola, “Cobra. Una Grande Avanguardia Europea 1948–51”, Artforum, December 2015, online)