Pierre Alechinsky

[Source: The Guggenheim Museum of Art}

Pierre Alechinsky grew up with varied artistic interests that included graphic techniques, folk art, and medieval book illustrations. From 1944 to 1948 he studied art at the École nationale supérieure d'architecture et des arts décoratifs (La cambre), Brussels. Alechinsky joined the group Jeune Peinture Belge (also known as Jonge Belgische Schilderkunst, young Belgian painters, 1945–48) and had his first solo exhibition in the Galerie Lou Cosyn, Brussels, in 1947. During a stay in Paris in 1948, he was deeply impressed by the work of Jean Dubuffet and Max Ernst, feeling particularly drawn to the former's Art Brut. In March 1949, Alechinsky visited an exhibition featuring artists from the Cobra group (1948–51) at the Séminaire des arts.

From 1949 to 1951, Alechinsky devoted himself so intensely to Cobra that he produced little work of his own. In 1951 he moved to Paris to study engraving and in 1955 went to Japan to study calligraphy. Since the mid-1960s, Alechinsky has worked primarily on paper. From 1983 to 1987 he was a professor of painting at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Paris. He has exhibited extensively and internationally throughout his career.