Description: Abstract etching

Media: Aquatint etching on paper

Title: 'Eau-Forte XXV' 62/100

Date: 1974

Measurements: 20.75" x 29.25" paper size size, and 22.75" x 35.25" x 1.25" overall including frame.

Condition: Good condition. Very slight toning to paper at edges.

Notes: Held in frame with milar corner mounts. (recent framing to protect the print, never professionally framed). Signed and number.

Provenance: From a museum benefit sale.

About the artist: Pierre Soulages (France 1919- ) is an important French painter, printmaker and sculptor. His works are characterized by heavy, broad black gestures on a light ground, letting the tools dictate the aesthetic effect. Soulages often uses rubber spatulas or roller brushes instead of the traditional paintbrush to create his works. Know as ‘the painter of black' Soulages has said, “My instrument is not black, but the light reflected from the black.” Soulages has named this practice 'Outrenoir'. In an interview in 2014 Soulages explained the definition of the term, “Outrenoir doesn’t exist in English; the closest is "beyond black". In French, you say "outre-Manche", "beyond the Channel", to mean England or "outre-Rhin", "beyond the Rhine", to mean Germany. In other words, "beyond black" is a different country from black".