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Jacques Villon

1875 - 1964

Promethée Delivré by Jacques Villon
 

Promethée Delivré   c.1960

  Original lithograph, printed in colours.
Signed twice in ink.
Ref: Ginestet & Pouillon App.119, trial proof.
S 573 x 384 mm; I 397 x 283 mm
£520
 
Superb early trial proof impression printed in a variant colour scheme of blue, pink, green, and black inks. Signed twice in ink. No published edition of this subject is known and Ginestet & Pouillon record the edition as “indeterminé”.

The leading Cubist artist, Jacques Villon achieved a highly personalised form of abstraction through the breakdown of shape into Cubist components. Jacques Villon’s first works of this nature date from around 1911-12 and he continued with this approach to art throughout his life.

Through his friendship with Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Jacques Villon was introduced to the possibilities of lithography and much of his earliest work as an illustrator and as a printmaker was produced through the lithographic medium. Jacques Villon only returned to lithography as a means of making original prints in the latter years of his life, his first works to reappear in this medium dating from about 1956. These late colour lithographs are extremely rare and few were ever released in formal editions. Promethée Delivré combines the Cubist interpretation for which J.Villon his now famous with the graphic techniques through which he first established his standing as a printmaker in Paris. This dramatic work represents the culmination of this highly influential artist’s inspired career as an original printmaker.

Prometheus was a Titan, an immortal of Greek legend, who was nailed to a rock high in the Caucasus mountains by the god Hephaestus, upon the command of Zeus, to suffer torment for as long as Zeus pleased. Prometheus is generally considered to be the champion of mankind, to whom he restored the element of fire and introduced the arts.

On pale cream wove paper, watermarked Arches, with full margins and deckle edge. Excellent original condition.