“Everything happens while working – this is one of the secrets of painting”. This maxim about the original source of his creations applies to the work of Pierre Alechinsky since the artist joined the international group of artists CoBrA in 1949. Their heretical, non-conformist and fantastic ideas characterize the art of the French-by-choice even today. It is the sustainable spell for depicting the unreal, the unconscious and chance – leitmotifs that drive the artist again and again.

The origins of his inspiration are myths, folk art and the pictorial world of the children as well as the form language of Paul Klee and Joan Miró with their sense for the primitive. Moreover, Alechinsky’s style of painting is deeply influenced by Asian calligraphy, which still fascinates him. Hidden literary citations in the titles of his works may witness his addiction to literature.

The bright appearance and the eruptive power of his paintings from the 1960s like Le Point du Jour are reminiscent of glazed ceramic colors of an extraordinary luminosity. The gestural flow of brushstrokes emerging warm rosé and brown color fields spreading like cascades on the canvas remind on a calligraphic ductus of working. This work still does not show the typical frame of a small graphic scene surrounding the center, a technique that Alechinsky develops at that time.