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Last updated: 6/23/2019
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Pierre Alechinsky (Belgian, b. 1927): Hors texte / WIthout texts

Our Alechinsky pages are arranged thematically and/or by series.
Clicking on a link will bring you to one or more pages on that subject.

The Dog King / Boxes / Central Park / Critters / Drawings / Faces / Grandes Marges / Hors Texte
Labyrinths / Landscapes / Maps / Mark-Making / Sreamers / Snakes / Transformations / Venice / Volcanoes
Alechinsky Specials

In the Chinese calendar, the Year of the Snake comes every twelve years. For Pierre Alechinsky, a founding member of COBRA (an acronym for the cities that contributed members to the group, Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam), the Year of the Snake can be an auspicious one. In 1977, also the Year of the Snake, Alechinsky was awarded the first Andrew W. Mellon Prize for Painting and executed one of the prints we are featuring, also called The Year of the Snake. Spaightwood Galleries began in 1980, so we missed our 1977 observance, but by 1989, Alechinsky's Guggenheim retrospective (which had been traveling in Europe for almost two years) had finally come to its end, and Spaightwood presented our first major Alechinsky show and purchased a small oil painting on canvas by the artist. In 2001, we once again celebrated the Year of the Snake with an Alechinsky show, founded upon our acquisition of large numbers of the two pieces published in 1977 to celebrate his Mellon prize and augmented by many more recent etchings and lithographs published by Galerie Lelong. Now, in 2013, as the Year of the Snake winds down to its close no sooner than mid-April, we are presenting our largest Alechinsky show to date. In our Upton space, we can fit more Alechinsky’s on the walls than ever before—97 on the walls (some of them quite large) and more leaning against the bookshelves beneath the walls where the others are hanging—and we plan to luxuriate in lots of Alechinsky's favorite images: maps, Papiers traités, Central Park, snakes, volcanoes, gardens, dog-kings, smiling crocodiles and sea monsters, and people existing as best they can in a world that often seems to invite extreme emotional responses. (Sometimes you just want to scream!) We are featuring lots of Alechinsky's favorite images: Central Park, snakes, volcanoes, gardens, dog-kings, smiling crocodiles and sea monsters, and people existing as best they can in a world that often seems to invite extreme emotional responses. (Sometimes you just want to scream!) Still, the central act of Alechinsky's art is the making of marks on a sheet of paper, on a canvas, on a copperplate, on a lithographic stone: for that is what distinguishes artists (visual or verbal) from destroyers.

Tête-bêche / Head to toe (A. 148). Original color lithograph, 1962. 50 signed & numbered impressions on Arches plus an edition (c. 2000 impression) with centerfold (as ours) signed and titled in the stone for Galerie de France Editeur. A rare early lithograph showing Alechinsky in full COBRA style. Image size: 319x487mm. Price: SOLD .

Hors Texte 1 (A. 149). Original color lithograph, 1962. Since each of the original lithographs in this series of images without texts has its own number in the first part of the Alechinsky catalogue raisonné of original prints, it would seem that Alechinsky began by making each of the images as separate stand-alone works and published them in an exhibition catalogue for an exhibit at La Galerie de France (Paris, 1962) in an edition of 2000 unsigned impressions of this print of which ours is one. Looking at them after he completed the series, he seems to have decided to combine pairs in separate printings for a deluxe edition of 50 signed and numbered impressions, combining this image with Hors Texte II. A rare early lithograph showing Alechinsky in full COBRA style. Image size: 319x241mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Hors Texte 1I (A. 150). Original color lithograph, 1962. Since each of the original lithographs in this series of images without texts has its own number in the first part of the Alechinsky catalogue raisonné of original prints, it would seem that Alechinsky began by making each of the images as separate stand-alone works and published them in an exhibition catalogue for an exhibit at La Galerie de France (Paris, 1962) in an edition of 2000 unsigned impressions of this print of which ours is one. Looking at them after he completed the series, he seems to have decided to combine pairs in separate printings for a deluxe edition of 50 signed and numbered impressions, combining this image with Hors Texte I. A rare early lithograph showing Alechinsky in full COBRA style. Image size: 319x241mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Hors Texte 1II (A. 151). Original color lithograph, 1962. Since each of the original lithographs in this series of images without texts has its own number in the first part of the Alechinsky catalogue raisonné of original prints, it would seem that Alechinsky began by making each of the images as separate stand-alone works and published them in an exhibition catalogue for an exhibit at La Galerie de France (Paris, 1962) in an edition of 2000 unsigned impressions of this print of which ours is one. Looking at them after he completed the series, he seems to have decided to combine pairs in separate printings for a deluxe edition of 50 signed and numbered impressions, combining this image with Hors Texte IV. A rare early lithograph showing Alechinsky in full COBRA style. Image size: 319x241mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Hors-Texte III-IV (A. 151-152) Original color lithograph, 1962. 50 signed and numbered impressions on Arches paper of which ours is n. 36/50. In addition to the deluxe edition, there are also 2000 unsigned impressions of each part of this lithograph. A rare early lithograph showing Alechinsky in full COBRA style. Image size: 348x565mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Hors Texte 1V (A. 152). Original color lithograph, 1962. Since each of the original lithographs in this series of images without texts has its own number in the first part of the Alechinsky catalogue raisonné of original prints, it would seem that Alechinsky began by making each of the images as separate stand-alone works and published them in an exhibition catalogue for an exhibit at La Galerie de France (Paris, 1962) in an edition of 2000 unsigned impressions of this print of which ours is one. Looking at them after he completed the series, he seems to have decided to combine pairs in separate printings for a deluxe edition of 50 signed and numbered impressions, combining this image with Hors Texte IV. A rare early lithograph showing Alechinsky in full COBRA style. Image size: 319x241mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Hors Texte V (A. 153). Original color lithograph, 1962. Since each of the original lithographs in this series of images without texts has its own number in the first part of the Alechinsky catalogue raisonné of original prints, it would seem that Alechinsky began by making each of the images as separate stand-alone works and published them in an exhibition catalogue for an exhibit at La Galerie de France (Paris, 1962) in an edition of 2000 unsigned impressions of this print of which ours is one. Looking at them after he completed the series, he seems to have decided to combine pairs in separate printings for a deluxe edition of 50 signed and numbered impressions, combining this image with Hors Texte VI. A rare early lithograph showing Alechinsky in full COBRA style. Image size: 319x241mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Hors Texte VI (A. 154). Original color lithograph, 1962. Since each of the original lithographs in this series of images without texts has its own number in the first part of the Alechinsky catalogue raisonné of original prints, it would seem that Alechinsky began by making each of the images as separate stand-alone works and published them in an exhibition catalogue for an exhibit at La Galerie de France (Paris, 1962) in an edition of 2000 unsigned impressions of this print of which ours is one. Looking at them after he completed the series, he seems to have decided to combine pairs in separate printings for a deluxe edition of 50 signed and numbered impressions, combining this image with Hors Texte V. A rare early lithograph showing Alechinsky in full COBRA style. Image size: 319x241mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Hors Texte VII (A. 155). Original color lithograph, 1962. Since each of the original lithographs in this series of images without texts has its own number in the first part of the Alechinsky catalogue raisonné of original prints, it would seem that Alechinsky began by making each of the images as separate stand-alone works and published them in an exhibition catalogue for an exhibit at La Galerie de France (Paris, 1962) in an edition of 2000 unsigned impressions of this print of which ours is one. Looking at them after he completed the series, he seems to have decided to combine pairs in separate printings for a deluxe edition of 50 signed and numbered impressions, combining this image with Hors Texte VIII. A rare early lithograph showing Alechinsky in full COBRA style. Image size: 319x241mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Hors-Texte VII-VIII (A. 155-156) Original color lithograph, 1962. 50 signed and numbered impressions on Arches paper of which ours is n. 37/50. In addition to the deluxe edition, there are also 2000 unsigned impressions of each part of this lithograph. A rare early lithograph showing Alechinsky in full COBRA style. Image size: 348x565mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Hors Texte VIII (A. 156). Original color lithograph, 1962. Since each of the original lithographs in this series of images without texts has its own number in the first part of the Alechinsky catalogue raisonné of original prints, it would seem that Alechinsky began by making each of the images as separate stand-alone works and published them in an exhibition catalogue for an exhibit at La Galerie de France (Paris, 1962) in an edition of 2000 unsigned impressions of this print of which ours is one. Looking at them after he completed the series, he seems to have decided to combine pairs in separate printings for a deluxe edition of 50 signed and numbered impressions, combining this image with Hors Texte VII. A rare early lithograph showing Alechinsky in full COBRA style. Image size: 319x241mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

A text for Alechinsky when doing without won't do:

Pierre Alechinsky, Paintings and Writings (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Museum, 1977). Published on the occasion of the award of the first Mellon Prize to Alechinsky, the deluxe edition of 100 is signed by Alechinsky. The book contains essays by Alechinsky on artists like Joan Miró and Bram van Velde, stories by Alechinsky, a photoducmentation of COBRA, and a good selection of Alechinsky's most important early paintings. The work is decorated by reproductions of drawings done especially for the volume. Although unsigned copies are presently selling for as much as Please call or email for current pricing information on the used book market, we are pleased to be able to offer several used copies for Please call or email for current pricing information.00 each. We also have one signed copy available for Please call or email for current pricing information (without the original lithograph originally included— (Snake Fish) or Please call or email for current pricing information (including the lithoggraph, which we normally sell for Please call or email for current pricing information by itself).

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