Robert Detheux (1932-2010) - Le balancier exigeant – 1978

FR : Payment required before the evening of October 26 No shipments possible from October 27 for nearly 3 weeks (absence). EN : Payment required before the evening of October 26 No shipments possible from October 27 for nearly 3 weeks (absence). Robert Detheux (1932-2010) Le balancier exigeant – 1978 Artist: Robert Detheux (Brussels, 1932 – Tournai, 2010) Title of the work: Le balancier exigeant Date: 1978 Signature: Signed and dated “Detheux 78” at the top left Inscription: “Le balancier exigeant” at the top right Technique: Mixed media on paper. Broad strokes, light washes, reserves and reworkings, an airy and structured surface. Dimensions: 49.5 × 39.5 cm Condition: Very good overall. The material is held together and coherent, surface effects are fully intended by the artist and participate fully in the work. Sold unframed. Provenance : Artist’s studio collection (acquired directly). Description : Large drawing dated 1978, bearing at the top right the inscription Le balancier exigeant. The title, written by the artist, immediately guides the reading toward a balance under tension, a controlled oscillation. Broad arcs and curves dominate the composition. Grey and white strokes sweep across the sheet in broad movements, like a large pendulum or a moving structure. At the bottom, denser shapes, almost rocky or organic, anchor the composition and give it weight. A fine vertical line runs through the whole, reinforcing the idea of measure and tension. The surface remains light, almost airy. The white reserves and light washes allow the sheet to breathe. The “balancier exigeant” reads here as a search for balance between large movement and mass, between gesture and structure. Detheux does not seek an identifiable figure, but a dynamic, an oscillation that remains suspended. We are in a more abstract and structural vein of Detheux’s work in the late 1970s. The large format allows these arcs to unfold fully. The eye travels along the curves, follows the pendulum, and remains in a calm and controlled tension. Rare drawing from 1978, large format, signed, dated and titled by the artist’s hand. An elegant and structured piece for collectors of Detheux who are sensitive to large airy compositions and tensions of balance. Biographie de l’artiste : Born in Brussels in 1932 and passed away in Tournai in 2010, Robert Detheux is a distinctive figure in Belgian art of the 20th century. A graduate of the Institut Saint-Luc in the Beaux-Arts in Brussels, he taught graphic expression at the Tournai Academy until 1996, while pursuing a personally coherent body of work. From the 1950s, he developed a surrealist and highly personal graphic language. He received the Prize for Young Belgian Painting in 1953, 1954 and 1971. The 1970s deepened themes of the body and the female face, hybrid figures and textures. The following decades extended this territory toward the grotesque, eroticism and black humor, before spectral portraits and appearances in the 2000s. Little exposure during his lifetime, Detheux worked freely. The unveiling of his studio fonds (nearly 1,500 works) made this coherence visible. His drawing, demanding and immediately recognizable, now attracts collectors of Belgian surrealism in Belgium, Spain and Europe.

Estimation:€200

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