JANUARY 19 TO MARCH 4, 2023

GALERIE DE L’INSTITUT

12 rue de Seine
75006 Paris

From January 19, the Galerie de l’Institut presents a selection of lithographs and etchings by Paul Delvaux (1897-1994).

Paul Delvaux took up engraving late in life, in 1960, at the age of 63. At the time, he was professor of monumental painting at the École nationale supérieure des arts visuels de Bruxelles (La Cambre). During a visit to the engraving studios with his students, he produced his first etching, Buste de femme.

At the end of 1965, he produced his first lithographs. They were printed the following year by Fernand Mourlot, the famous Parisian studio.

His Œuvre gravé comprises some one hundred works, which he produced until 1975, the date of his last creations. Women are omnipresent, even more so than in his paintings. His compositions are strongly imbued with art history, from Antiquity to Giorgio de Chirico, via the École de Fontainebleau, among many other references.

Le Silence, for example, on view on rue de Seine, evokes the famous Louvre painting Gabrielle d’Estrées et une de ses sœurs, (1575/1600, École de Fontainebleau, anonymous, Musée du Louvre).

Finally, Paul Delvaux illustrated two books:

The first, 7 Dialogues avec Paul Delvaux, illustrates texts by Jacques Meuris (Paris, Le Soleil noir éditions, 1971). One of the five etchings is presented.

The second, Construction d’un temple en ruine à la déesse de Vanadé (Paris, galerie Le Bateau Lavoir éditeur, 1975) includes texts by Alain Robbe-Grillet, one of the creators of the Nouveau Roman; Delvaux engraved eleven etchings for this work.