Pierre Alechinsky

PIERRE ALECHINSKY (Brussels, 1927).
“Prologue,” 2016.
Lithograph on paper. Edition 99/99.
Work listed in the catalogue raisonné—Alech 0840.
With a dry stamp from the Clot-Paris studio.
Signed, dated, inscribed, and titled by the artist.
Provenance: Lelong Gallery.
Measurements: 57 x 77 cm; 63.5 x 83.5 cm (frame).
In *Prologue*, Pierre Alechinsky unfolds his unmistakable graphic universe through a composition characterized by energetic lines and great gestural freedom. The scene appears to depict a knight facing a monumental serpent, creating an image of intense narrative tension. Although conceived in a fully contemporary style and free from any strict iconographic interpretation, the composition inevitably evokes the traditional imagery of Saint Michael the Archangel defeating the dragon. Moreover, this is not an isolated motif within the artist’s body of work. Alechinsky had already explored this theme in earlier works, such as *Saint Michel terrassé par le dragon*, held at the Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, where he reinterpreted the famous episode through his characteristic visual vocabulary, marked by gesturality, expressive distortion, and the power of the line. In *Prologue*, the artist revisits this motif without narrative pretensions, transforming it into a visual metaphor that synthesizes some of the constants defining Alechinsky’s mature work: the spontaneity of his drawing, the influence of Eastern calligraphy, the dynamism of organic forms, and the ability to transform references from the Western tradition into images of extraordinary expressive freedom, situated on the boundary between figuration and abstraction.
A Belgian lithographer, painter, and theorist, Pierre Alechinsky (Brussels, 1927) trained at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture et des Arts Décoratifs de La Cambre. In 1949, he joined the CoBrA group, alongside artists such as Karel Appel, Asger Jorn, and Christian Dotremont, developing a visual language based on the spontaneity of gesture and expressive freedom. After the movement disbanded, he settled in Paris, where he honed his printmaking techniques at the renowned Atelier 17 and incorporated the influence of Eastern calligraphy, a distinctive feature of his entire body of work. His work, situated between figuration and abstraction, has been the subject of major retrospectives and international exhibitions since the 1960s and is part of prestigious public and private collections, including the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA), and the Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique.