Robert Detheux (1932-2010) - Portrait féminin spectral

lot/robert detheux 1932 2010 portrait feminin spectral MVhMmg7 632951296 / For sale

lot/robert detheux 1932 2010 portrait feminin spectral MVhMmg7 632951296

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lot/robert detheux 1932 2010 portrait feminin spectral MVhMmg7 632951296

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Robert Detheux (1932-2010) - Portrait féminin spectral

Robert Detheux (1932-2010) Spectral Female Portrait – 1978 Artist: Robert Detheux (Brussels, 1932 – Tournai, 2010) Title of the work: Spectral Female Portrait Date: 1978 Signed and dated “Detheux 78” at the bottom left. Technique: Painting (mixed media: thick whites, scumbling, scratching, drips, graphite highlights) on paper. The artist builds the figure from the material itself: impasto, reserves, craters and vertical drippings that turn the support into almost sculptural relief. Dimensions: 51 × 39.5 cm Condition: Very good overall condition. Beautiful preservation of the contrasts between milky whites, grays, and the texture accidents. The drips, holes, scratches, and brushstrokes are entirely intentional by the artist. No loss or tear visible. Sold unframed. Signature: Signed and dated “Detheux 78” at the bottom left. Provenance: Artist’s studio collection (acquired directly). Description: A rare painting from 1978, all in whites and grays. In the upper part of the sheet, a female portrait appears — profile, slightly tilted, like an apparition caught in the material. The forehead, brow, the line of the nose, and the mass of the hair are legible in the impastos, never drawn with a line. The body of the work is a large white form, pierced, striped, almost lunar. Craters open in the paste; vertical drips descend toward the bottom of the sheet like rain or a veil. Around it, broad circular brushstrokes envelop the figure and isolate it in a floating space. What one initially believes to be abstraction becomes, with careful looking, a face. What one believes is a face dissolves again into the matter. This oscillation is typically Detheuxian: the female body is not represented as such, it emerges — and withdraws. The texture work is virtuoso. Thick whites, scumbling, scratching, and drippings give the illusion of a bas-relief or carved plaster, while everything is painted. Depending on the light, the portrait advances or recedes, vibrates, and slightly doubles. This piece belongs to the 1970s period, that of sensual explorations of the body and the female face, already oriented toward appearance and secrecy. Generous format, rarity of this exclusively light-toned palette, exceptional visual density: a mature work that will appeal to collectors of Belgian surrealist art sensitive to themes of veil, material, and appearance. Artist Biography Born in Brussels in 1932 and passed away in 2010, Robert Detheux is a singular, demanding, and deeply endearing figure in 20th-century Belgian art. A graduate of the Saint-Luc Institute and the Beaux-Arts in Brussels, he taught graphic expression at the Academy of Tournai until 1996, while developing a personal body of work of great coherence and remarkable freedom. His artistic trajectory unfolds in several major phases: • In the 1950s–1960s, he asserted a powerful surrealist and expressionist language, marked by intense portraits and dreamlike compositions. • In the 1970s, he sensually and obsessively explored the theme of the body and the female face, developing hybrid figures and highly elaborate textures. • The 1980s–1990s saw the emergence of a more hybrid and grotesque universe, blending erotism, black humor, and poetry. • Finally, the 2000–2010 period, especially sought after today, represents a total maturity: spectral portraits, appearances, hybrid figures executed with exceptional mastery. Little shown during his lifetime, Robert Detheux freely created a private, subversive, and poetic universe that belongs only to him. Rediscovered in recent years thanks to the emergence of his substantial studio archive (nearly 1,500 works on paper), his work today enjoys a legitimate and growing interest among discerning collectors in Belgium, Spain, and Europe. A master of drawing, Detheux left an authentic, vibrant, and timeless oeuvre that continues to surprise and captivate with its evocative power, deep humanity, and modernity. Collecting Detheux is to enter a unique dreamlike world, populated by hybrid figures and waking dreams.

Estimate:$225.04

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