Pierre Alechinsky
(Schaarbeek,
1927 )
Belgian graphic artist and painter Pierre Alechinsky has lived and worked in Paris since 1963. Before that, he was the foremost representative of the Brussels branch of the Cobra movement, which had its peak between 1948 and 1951. The group name Cobra is a contraction of the three cities where the innovative art movement originated: Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam. Alechinsky joined these young newcomers in 1949, like them, inspired by Surrealism and Art Brut. A year later, he was awarded the Young Belgian Painting Prize. From 1951, he went regularly to Paris where he became acquainted with Alberto Giacometti, Asger Jorn and Walasse Ting. The latter’s work in particular served as an example for the Belgian when it came to reconciling Eastern and Western aesthetic traditions. In the ensuing decades, the influence of Eastern calligraphy became increasingly prominent within Alechinsky’s lyrical oeuvre. In 1960, he created the Belgian pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Since 1983, Alechinsky has taught at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts in Paris.
