Aldo Crommelynck (26 December 1931 – 22 December 2008) was a Belgian
master printmaker Master printmakers or master printers are specialized technicians who hand-print editions of an artist's or printmaker's print-based artwork. Master printmakers often own and/or operate their own printmaking studio or print shop. Business activities ...
who made
intaglio prints in collaboration with many important European and American artists of the 20th century.
At the time of his death,
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
termed Crommelynck the '
pre-eminent' and 'the most celebrated printmaker of the second half of the 20th century.'
Family
Crommelinck was born in
Monaco
Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...
. His father was the
Belgian
Belgian may refer to:
* Something of, or related to, Belgium
* Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent
* Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German
*Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...
playwright
Fernand Crommelynck
Fernand Crommelynck (19 November 1886 – 17 March 1970) was a Belgian dramatist. His work is known for farces in which commonplace weaknesses are developed into monumental obsessions.
Biography
He was born into a family of actors, the child ...
(1886–1970) and his mother was Anne Marie Le Tellier (1886–1970). They had four sons: Jean,
Aldo, Piero (1934–2001), and Milan.
Aldo's older brother, Jean, was a photographer and reporter.
Fernand's theatrical masterpiece was ''
Le Cocu magnifique'' (1920). He also made many black and white drawings of his family and friends.
Aldo's uncle,
Albert Crommelynck, was a Belgian painter, set designer, muralist, printmaker, and writer. Albert's son Patrick (1942–1994) and his wife, Taeko Kuwata (1945–1994), formed the classical piano
Duo Crommelynck, which was active from 1974 until July 9–10, 1994, when both performers committed suicide.
Career
At age 17, in keeping with his family's artistic tradition, Aldo Crommelynck began an apprenticeship in Paris under the French printmaker Roger Lacourière,
who was a family friend.
Here, he worked with major artists:
Fernand Léger,
André Masson
André-Aimé-René Masson (4 January 1896 – 28 October 1987) was a French artist.
Biography
Masson was born in Balagny-sur-Thérain, Oise, but when he was eight his father's work took the family first briefly to Lille and then to Brussel ...
,
Georges Rouault
Georges Henri Rouault (; 27 May 1871, Paris – 13 February 1958) was a French painter, draughtsman and print artist, whose work is often associated with Fauvism and Expressionism.
Childhood and education
Rouault was born in Paris into a ...
and
Joan Miró. He also assisted
Henri Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, and sculptur ...
on the aquatint series ''Visages'' (1945–52)
and formed a close relationship with
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
.
In 1955, the Crommelynck brothers, Aldo, Piero and Milan, founded a workshop in
Montparnasse
Montparnasse () is an area in the south of Paris, France, on the left bank of the river Seine, centred at the crossroads of the Boulevard du Montparnasse and the Rue de Rennes, between the Rue de Rennes and boulevard Raspail. Montparnasse has bee ...
. Soon, Atelier Crommelynck began to attract stellar clients; Miró,
Le Corbusier,
Jean Arp, and
Alberto Giacometti came to work in the studio. Picasso left Lacourière for the new shop, on the strength of a single print Crommelynck had made of his 1952 gouache ''Le crâne de chevre sur la table'' ('Goat skull on a table'), with the unconventional choice of printing its white with white ink.
[Hurwitz, Laurie]
"Aldo Crommelynck: Master and Midwife,"
''Art in Print'', Vol. 4, No. 2 (July–August 2014). There
Georges Braque created a series of etchings and aquatints titled ''L'Ordre des Oiseaux'' (''The Order of Birds''), which was published in 1962, accompanying poetry by
Saint-John Perse
Alexis Leger (; 31 May 1887 – 20 September 1975), better known by his pseudonym Saint-John Perse (; also Saint-Leger Leger), was a French poet-diplomat, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1960 "for the soaring flight and evocative ...
.
In 1963, Picasso decided that he needed a printmaker close to his house in the south of France at
Mougins
Mougins (; oc, Mogins ; la, Muginum ) is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes département in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in Southeastern France. In 2019, it had a population of 19,982.
It is located on the heights of Cannes, in the a ...
. In response, Aldo and Piero Crommelynck set up a studio nearby, where they helped him to create approximately 750 prints. Among these were illustrations for a version of Fernand's ''
Le Cocu magnifique'',
and the ''Series 347'' (1968), whose erotic images created a furor when they were exhibited simultaneously in Paris and Chicago in 1968. Even though the
Art Institute of Chicago withheld 25 of the prints as "unfit for public consumption", it was deluged with complaints.
Although this series has gained critical acceptance,
it continues to generate controversy.
After Picasso died in 1973, Aldo and Piero Crommelynck returned to Paris, where their atelier attracted the established British artists:
Richard Hamilton,
David Hockney
David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English painter, draftsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists o ...
and
Howard Hodgkin
Sir Gordon Howard Eliott Hodgkin (6 August 1932 – 9 March 2017) was a British painter and printmaker. His work is most often associated with abstraction.
Early life
Gordon Howard Eliot Hodgkin was born on 6 August 1932 in Hammersmith, ...
, as well as several younger American artists:
Jim Dine
Jim Dine (born June 16, 1935 in Cincinnati, Ohio) is an American artist whose œuvre extends over sixty years. Dine’s work includes painting, drawing, printmaking (in many forms including lithographs, etchings, gravure, intaglio, woodcuts, l ...
,
Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns (born May 15, 1930) is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker whose work is associated with abstract expressionism, Neo-Dada, and pop art. He is well known for his depictions of the American flag and other US-related top ...
and
David Salle
David Salle (born September 28, 1952; last name pronounced "Sally") is a Pictures Generation American painter, printmaker, photographer, and stage designer. Salle was born in Norman, Oklahoma, and lives and works in East Hampton, New York. He ear ...
. After a falling out in 1986, Aldo opened a second print shop on his own in New York City, in partnership with Pace Prints.
From 1973 to 1976 Crommelynck collaborated closely with Hockney, instructing him in a number of etching techniques, including sugar lift and especially the use of wooden frames in multicolor prints.
[Beaumont-Jones, Julia]
"The Rake's Progress,"
''Art in Print'', Vol. 4 No. 4 (November–December 2014). In culmination in 1976–77 Hockney created a portfolio of twenty etchings using Crommelynck's techniques called ''
The Blue Guitar''. The
frontispiece read: "The Blue Guitar, Etchings By David Hockney Who Was Inspired By
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance compa ...
Who Was Inspired By Pablo Picasso".
The etchings refer to themes of a poem by Stevens, ''
The Man with the Blue Guitar''. The portfolio was published by Petersburg Press in October 1977. That year, Petersburg also published a book, in which the images were accompanied by the poem's text.
Crommelynck had a close relationship with Dine, who said: "He taught me everything I know about etching", and with whom he collaborated on more than 100 prints.
Among these were the 25-print series ''Nancy Outside in July'' (1977–81)
and many prints derived from Dine's paintings of hearts and bathrobes. In 2007, Dine donated to the
Bibliothèque nationale de France a nearly complete set of these prints. From 23 April until 17 June 2007, the Bibliothèque sponsored an exhibition, ''Aldo et moi'', of prints selected from this set,
and published a book which includes these images.
In 2014 he was the subject of another paired exhibition and publication by the Bibliothèque, "From Picasso to Jasper Johns, the Atelier of Aldo Crommelynck" 8 April - 13 July 2014, and ''De Picasso à Jasper Johns: L'Atelier d'Also Crommelynck''.
In the early 1980s, Dine made a series of drawings, prints, and paintings that referred to the ornate iron gate at the entrance to Atelier Crommelynck at 172
rue de Grenelle, Paris.
These activities culminated in the creation of a huge painted bronze sculpture, the ''Crommelynck Gate With Tools''.
In 2009, after Crommelynck's death,
Enitharmon Press
Enitharmon Press is an independent British publishing house specialising in artists’ books, poetry, limited editions and original prints.
The name of the press comes from the poetry of William Blake: Enitharmon was a character who represented ...
published a deluxe edition of Dyne's reminiscences, ''Talking About Aldo'', which includes a signed portrait etching. Two of Crommelynck's etching presses came to the US and are still in use, one at Wingate Studio (Hinsdale, NH), a fine art intaglio printing and publishing studio under the direction of master printer Peter Pettengill and the other at Mixit Print Studio, a professional monoprint/intaglio studio (Somerville MA).
Selected collaborations
See also
*
List of French artists
The following is a chronological list of French artists working in visual or plastic media (plus, for some artists of the 20th century, performance art). For alphabetical lists, see the various subcategories of French artists. See other article ...
*
List of printmakers
Key to Techniques: En = Engraver (includes Drypoint), Et = Etcher, Wo = Mezzotint, Mo = Monotype, Aq = Aquatint, Li = Lithography, We = Wood engraving, Sc = Screen-printing, St = Stipple, Di = digital.
Old master print period – c. 18 ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crommelynck, Aldo
1931 births
2008 deaths
20th-century Belgian artists
20th-century French printmakers
21st-century Belgian artists
21st-century French artists
21st-century printmakers
Artists from Paris
Belgian printmakers
Deaths in France
Monegasque artists
People from Alpes-Maritimes