Desmond Freeman Paris

D e s m on d F r e e m a n Pa r i s I m p r e s s i on s i n I n k

Paris D e s m on d F r e e m a n

I m p r e s s i on s i n I n k

$45.00 [USA] £35.00 [GB]

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his book displays more than fifty pen and ink drawings – my impressions of Paris. These impressions have been gathered and documented since my first memorable visit to Paris in the early 1970s.

At the time I was a penniless student at the Royal College of Art in London and I was only able to afford such an extravagance by going everywhere on foot. This experience not only familiarized me with the layout of Paris, but required that I take the time – as an otherwise somewhat over-enthusiastic flaneur – to really observe the Parisian attention to detail in its architecture, streetscape and particular way of life. I have since returned many times over the last almost fifty years and have found my enthusiasm for this most elegant of cities entirely undiminished.

It was natural then that Paris should follow Venice in my planned series of books of drawings depicting my interpretation of the architecture of great European cities.

Paris demands a great deal of its admirers. It is physically exhausting as one is lured through sprawling parks, squares and gardens, along impossibly wide boulevards and through tangles of streets and tight lanes, many of which are bounded by medium-rise apartment buildings of a very distinctive character. It seems the legacy of Georges-Eugène Haussman (often referred to as Baron Haussmann) is everywhere, dominated by the fine apartment blocks in creamy, Lutetian limestone modeled on those in Rue de Rivoli.

Haussmann’s influence inevitably permeates my selection of subjects in this collection of drawings, such as the Opéra Garnier, the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel near The Louvre, the remodelled Sainte-Chapelle, and of course the Place du Trocadéro in the foreground of the

aerial view including La tour Eiffel. Most of medieval Paris was demolished to make way for Haussmann’s nineteenth-century modernisation.

Some important medieval buildings remain, and I have included a drawing of the entry to one of our favourite locations, the ancient Hôtel de Cluny, once the town house of the abbots of Cluny and now the Musée de Cluny – Musée national du Moyen Âge – incorporating the Thermes de Cluny ruins of Gallo-Roman thermal baths in the heart of the 5th arrondissement.

An even more exacting demand Paris made of me was to limit my selection to just fifty subjects from its seemingly endless offering – some famous, some incredibly beautiful, some everyday, yet each one distinctly Parisian – an unenviable task. Our most recent visit involved several photo excursions, walking an estimated 40 kilometres, which resulted in capturing some simple but irresistible studies, such as the reflections on the façade of a market on the Boulevard de Magenta near our apartment, and a shot of Christine with our daughter, Penelope, and granddaughter, Vivienne, at the entrance to the covered passageway of GalerieVivienne.

I am often asked if I sketch and draw the subjects of my pictures on site. My style demands greater attention to detail than I could possibly capture other than by reference to photographs. Some shots are my own, others are from a wide range of reference materials I gather on each city, including the aerial shots from which I have produced pictures, such as the Trocadéro and the Tour Eiffel panorama, the Opéra Garnier diptych, and the Tour Eiffel and Invalides. Since the construction of the Centre Georges Pompidou in the 1970s Paris has become renowned for fine

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contemporary architecture. In addition to the obvious Centre Georges Pompidou I have included a picture of one of our favourite museums, Jean Nouvel’s Institut du Monde Arabe on Rue des Fossés Saint Bernard.

My drawing style has evolved over many years of design practice in which I found it extremely useful to be able to produce quick sketches of buildings or interiors. Only once I had started to produce the Venice drawings for the first book in this series, Desmond Freeman Venice Impressions in Ink, did I consolidate all that experience into something like a consistent, personal artistic style with some integrity. The Paris drawings have demanded even greater attention to detail than those I prepared for Venice. The predominantly Gothic features of many Venetian buildings have thus given way to the romance of eighteenthcentury French architecture and its evolution into the very particular nineteenth-century fantasy of much of what we see in Paris today.

Apart from the individual buildings, Paris offers a refined urban environment with unique attention to the creation of superb public spaces and vistas, and unmatched civic lighting, which are a delight to the artist’s eye.

I find that I never tire of the detail – the more complex the better – and have developed a methodology for dealing with the daunting task of undertaking a drawing like the Opéra Garnier diptych (1500 x 1660 millimetres) – an aerial view of the opera house and its immediate environs from the rear. The setting out and the perspective are drawn in pencil, always ensuring that the vertical lines are indeed vertical. I find it more satisfying to keep the pencil work to a minimum and generally cannot wait to start

the ink line work using a very fine 0.1 sepia ink pen on archival Arches 300gsm acid-free paper. Freehand drawing within the strictures of the line work is very gratifying to me, and so I move from one complex of buildings to the next, completing every window and door, roof tile, dormer and surface decoration.

The original sepia drawing is sometimes then coloured directly or scanned to produce a linework print that can then be coloured. The print is produced on archival acid-free paper ready for the colour. My technique requires the use of the highest quality of ink applied by pen or brush, sometimes with up to six or eight layers to achieve the required tone. Additional fine line work is often required over the coloured ink with white highlights often almost the last effect. The use of shadows is integral in my style and understandably adds required depth and often drama to the picture. The drawings cannot be rushed and some, such as the Opéra Garnier diptych can take more than 260 hours to complete. The final coloured work is then scanned and a digital record kept for the production – if required – of a limited series of signed, archival pigment prints.

This book, as was the Venice book, is enriched by the inclusion of quotations and poetry brilliantly selected by Christine Freeman. Christine’s contribution to the book and to the collection of drawings takes many forms and is thoughtful, patient, and always generous. We have enjoyed Paris together many times and always succeed in finding new aspects of the city to explore.

at the 21st Independent Publisher Annual Book Awards 2017 ceremony in New York. Winning this prestigious award encouraged me to seek a publisher for my second book, and possibly the remaining three books in the series. Images Publishing in Melbourne, Australia, was keen to be involved and my thanks go to Paul Latham, Joe Boschetti, Gina Tsarouhas and Nicole Boehringer for their enthusiasm and support throughout the development of the Paris book.

Our sincere thanks also go to our friends, Professor Ron Newman and his wife Marianne for so generously offering us the use of their apartment in Paris for research visits.

Thomas Eberhart Freeman, our son-in-law, has cheerfully applied his substantial skills to introducing my work to a wider audience, and I remain truly grateful to his and our daughter Penelope’s – as well as Nicholas’s – constructive, caring and unreserved support.

It is difficult to express adequately my debt of thanks to the many dear friends and family members, both near and far-flung, and too numerous to list here, who gave me the confidence and wherewithal to continue to pursue my passion and realise this next book in the series.

On to Rome!

Desmond Freeman Heritage Park Bowral 2018

Independently published, the Venice book was fortunate to be awarded the Gold Medal for Fine Art books, and our son Nicholas represented me

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Even the Avenue de l’Opera, with the huge building at the end of it, will bear praise. If it lacks meaning yet it does not lack greatness, and the Opera itself has something in it of the fantastic which avoids the grotesque. It is a “Palais du Diable”, and it is not a little to say for a modern building that it holds the statuary well and harmoniously, especially when there are such groups in that statuary as “La Dance”.

—Hilaire Belloc Paris, 1900

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You who have ever been to Paris, know; And you who have not been to Paris – go!

—John Ruskin Journal of a Tour Through France to Chamouni, 1835

Whoever does not visit Paris regularly will never really be elegant.

—Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850)

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Published in Australia in 2018 by The Images Publishing Group Pty Ltd ABN 89 059 734 431 The Images Publishing Group Reference Number: 1441 Offices Melbourne, Australia 6 Bastow Place Mulgrave, Victoria 3170, Australia Tel: +61 3 9561 5544 books@imagespublishing.com www.imagespublishing.com

NewYork, United States 6 West 18th Street, 4B New York, NY 10011, United States Tel: +1 212 645 1111

Images © Desmond Freeman 2018 www.desmondfreeman.art All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

Title: ISBN:

Desmond Freeman Paris: Impressions in Ink // Desmond Freeman (1946–) 9781864707601

Production manager | Group art director: Nicole Boehringer Senior editor: Gina Tsarouhas Layout designer: Nicole Boehringer The author and publishers gratefully acknowledge the graphic design contribution of Stephen Goddard of Project Two for his significant role in the creation of the first book in this series, Desmond FreemanVenice: Impressions in Ink. Cover image: Place desVosges, Paris, 2017 © Desmond Freeman Portrait photography and text research: © Christine Freeman Digital scanning, colour calibration and image sizing: Arthead (www.arthead.com.au) Desmond Freeman would like to thank all those private owners who have kindly allowed works in their possession to be reproduced.

Printed in China on 140gsm Sun woodfree paper Every effort has been made to trace the original source of copyright material contained in this book. The publishers would be pleased to hear from copyright holders to rectify any errors or omissions.

The information and illustrations in this publication have been prepared and supplied by Desmond Freeman, with text research by Christine Freeman. While all reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, the publishers do not, under any circumstances, accept responsibility for errors, omissions and representations express or implied.

IMAGES has included on its website a page for special notices in relation to this and its other publications. Please visit www.imagespublishing.com

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