Robert Detheux (1932-2010) - Le Cerf-volant Les jeux de l’été – 1979

FR : Payment required before the evening of October 25. No shipments possible from October 26 for nearly 3 weeks (absence). EN : Payment required before the evening of October 25. No shipments possible from October 26 for nearly 3 weeks (absence). Robert Detheux (1932-2010) – Le Cerf-volant Les jeux de l’été – 1979 Artist: Robert Detheux (Brussels, 1932 – Tournai, 2010) Title of the work: Le Cerf-volant Series: Les jeux de l’été Date: 1979 Signature : Signed and dated “Detheux 79” at the bottom right. Technique: Painting / mixed media on paper (pink wash, white highlights, fine line). Everything is painted or drawn. The tearing, reserved areas and texture effects are obtained with washes and brush. The sheet was fixed by the artist onto a white paper. Dimensions: 51 × 36.5 cm Condition : Good overall condition. A small crease at the upper right corner and a visible tear at the top left, visible in photos. The pink, white highlights and the line are well preserved. The milky background, grain and variations of texture are intentional. Sold unframed. Provenance : Artist’s studio collection (acquired directly). Description : Rare and beautiful painting from 1979, belonging to the series Les jeux de l’été. On a nearly white pink background, two shapes respond to each other. At the top, a kite: pink, irregular mass, barely held, like a cloud or a wing. A very fine thread descends, curves, and below meets a second apparition — bag, face, body or simply the shadow of the game. Nothing is attached. Nothing is pasted. Detheux does not paint a summer toy: he makes a presence appear. The thread links without telling a story. The milky pink, white reserves and spots give the sheet its particular density, between spectral eroticism, poetry and ritual, typical of the great compositions of the late 1970s. The title, Le Cerf-volant, says it all. The work rests in the rare tension between gentleness and vertigo, between play and vanity. Elegant format, rarity of sheets in the Les jeux de l’été series: a work characteristic of Detheux’s maturity in 1979, which will appeal to Belgian surrealist art lovers sensitive to light figures, to materiality and to appearance. Artist biography Born in Brussels in 1932 and passed away in 2010, Robert Detheux is a singular, demanding and deeply endearing figure of Belgian art in the 20th century. A graduate of the Saint-Luc Institute in the Beaux-Arts in Brussels, he taught graphic expression at the Academy of Tournai until 1996, while developing a personal body of work with great coherence and remarkable freedom. His artistic career unfolds in several major periods : • From the 1950s-1960s, he asserts a powerful surrealist and expressionist language, marked by intense portraits and dreamlike compositions. • In the 1970s, to which the present painting fully belongs, he explores with sensuality and obsession the theme of the body, of play and of appearance, developing hybrid figures and highly elaborate textures. • The 1980s-1990s see the emergence of a more hybrid and grotesque universe, mixing eroticism, black humor and poetry. • Finally, the 2000-2010 period, particularly sought after today, is one of total maturity: spectral portraits, appearances, hybrid figures and feline creatures executed with exceptional mastery. Little exposed during his lifetime, Robert Detheux freely created an intimate, subversive and poetic universe that belongs only to him. Rediscovered in recent years thanks to the unveiling of his important studio archive (nearly 1500 works on paper), his work now enjoys a legitimate and growing enthusiasm among collectors in Belgium, Spain and Europe. A master of drawing and matter, Detheux leaves behind an authentic, vibrant and timeless oeuvre that continues to surprise and charm with its evocative power, deep humanity and modernity. Collecting Detheux is to enter a unique dreamlike world, populated by hybrid figures, summer dreams and appearances.

Estimate:$224.04

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