Roue libre
Roue libre is an important artist’s book by Pierre Alechinsky in Skira’s Les Sentiers de la création series. The title suggests movement without constraint: a free turning of line, memory, text and image. Alechinsky appears here not only as painter or printmaker, but as an author commenting from within his own visual universe. The richly illustrated edition reveals how his work emerges from traces, margins, circular movements, calligraphic impulses and unexpected associations. Skira’s series was designed precisely for such hybrid books, in which artists could unfold their method, imagination and studio-thinking in book form. This copy belongs to the numbered hardbound issue of 1000 copies and is numbered 554. It is therefore a strong and representative collector’s object from Alechinsky’s mature period, at the intersection of the Cobra legacy, informal art and the self-reflective artist’s book.
Quantity
Alechinsky, Pierre
Roue libre
1971 | Genève | Albert Skira
This numbered copy of Roue libre is an important entry into Alechinsky’s creative method. The rich illustration, Skira series context and hardbound edition of 1000 copies make it a strong document of the postwar artist’s book. Number 554 preserves Alechinsky’s freewheeling in a clear and collectible form.
Roue libre is an important artist’s book by Pierre Alechinsky in Skira’s Les Sentiers de la création series. The title suggests movement without constraint: a free turning of line, memory, text and image. Alechinsky appears here not only as painter or printmaker, but as an author commenting from within his own visual universe. The richly illustrated edition reveals how his work emerges from traces, margins, circular movements, calligraphic impulses and unexpected associations. Skira’s series was designed precisely for such hybrid books, in which artists could unfold their method, imagination and studio-thinking in book form. This copy belongs to the numbered hardbound issue of 1000 copies and is numbered 554. It is therefore a strong and representative collector’s object from Alechinsky’s mature period, at the intersection of the Cobra legacy, informal art and the self-reflective artist’s book.
€260
Condition Report:
In-Depth Study
References & Bibliography
Format
In-8 (Octavo) approx. 20 × 26 cm
Edition Particulars
One of 1000 hardbound and numbered copies.
Print Run
1000
Copy Number
No. 554
Inscription
No inscription
Product DETAIL
Roue libre is neither a novel nor a linear essay, but a richly illustrated exploration of Alechinsky’s own visual world. The book combines text, reproductions, drawings and visual documents to show how his painting and graphic work come into being. Its centre is movement, line, paper, margin, sign, memory and the associative logic of making. The reader follows not a plot with characters, but a route through motifs and working processes. The title, “freewheeling”, suits the structure: the book moves from observation to image, from image to thought and from thought back to graphic impulse. The content is therefore at once autobiographical, artistic and poetic. It presents the studio not as a closed place, but as an open route in which seeing, drawing and writing continually drive one another forward.
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