“The Prince of the printmakers” as flm director Jean-Michel Meurice called Piero
Landa and Piero Crommelynck at the Mougins studio, September 1969
Piero Crommelynck, Master Engraver Fine art printmaking is the most special of art forms. Challenging for the artist and the intaglio printmaker in every aspect: art, science, collaboration and execution. Making a print, creating an edition, is so unlike drawing on a piece of paper or painting on paper or canvas. A truly extensive world of techniques exist and misconceptions abound – with only a thin layer of understanding of the technical complexities and the role of the engraver by most of the public. The result of classic crafsmanship, relationships with the artists and ultimately, executing (to perfection) the imagery the artist wants to create. Especially, when working on a copper plate. Metal and acid are such unstable elements that there is one moment, and this one moment only, the printmaker has to master, or the result will be ruined. So the relationship between the artist and the printmaker becomes a true matter of trust. The following group of prints and preparatory drawings are the most special of things – unique impressions, enabled to life with and for some of the most well recognized artists in the world. These examples are the evidence of fruitful collaborations and pure art history, pure story behind the surface decoration. Whether they be a proof: trial, working, state, good-to-print (bon à tirer) or an impression from the fnal edition, their provenance is
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the record and the most direct link to these relationships – collaborative masterpieces of creativity and innovation. The Crommelynck brothers – Piero and Aldo – are two of the most important and respected intaglio engravers of the twentieth-century. Their father, Fernand Crommelynck, a Belgian playwright, wanted his sons (along with their brother Milan) to master a craf. They were taught classical nineteenth-century traditional French intaglio printmaking in the late 1940’s, when they were teenagers, by one of the most famous master printmakers before them, Roger Lacourière, and worked for him until 1955. Here is where they were introduced to Miró and Picasso. In 1956 the Crommelyncks set up their frst work-shop in partnership with Robert Dutrou, at a ‘rudimentary premises in the rue de Plaisance, a gloomy little street behind Montparnasse Station where a sordid courtyard led to their tiny room…’. Georges Braque, one of their father’s friends, was the frst to employ their skills. Later Joan Miró arrived in a chaufeur-driven American car. Piero helped Miró with several colour intaglio prints for René Crevel’s La bague d’Aurore (Aurora’s Ring) and worked with Braque on Les feuillages (Foliage) and other colour engravings. Pat Gilmour Piero Crommelynck, Print Quarterly XVIII, 2001, pp. 165-6.
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