Imaginary Places – Erik Desmazieres
Imaginary Places by Erik Desmazieres / ISBN 9788874394111 / A lovely hardcover, 11.25 x 8.5 inches, bilingual French/English
***
“There are printmakers and printmakers, and then there is Erik Desmazieres, a Frenchman who stands in a class by himself.”– The New York Times
Erik Desmazieres is considered to be one of the finest French printmakers of his generation. His etchings and drawings, rendered with masterly precision and attention to detail, range from intimate interiors to wild architectural fantasies, and recall Old Masters such as Bosch and Goya. A prolonging of childhood fairytales, the allure of Erik Desmazieres’ prints lies in part in their ambiguity, but also in the technical virtuosity, careful observation, and singularity of his inventions. This volume surveys the artist’s earlier production from the 1970s and 1980s, focusing on Desmazieres’ imaginary places, through 80 prints and drawings. It includes the artist’s masterpieces The Temptation of St Anthony, the prints used to illustrate Borges’s Library of Babel, Imaginary Alphabets, and Rembrandt’s Curiosity Cabinet, to name a few.
