Unfortunately I don't remember who I gave this to many years ago. If i did I'd send them an insulting letter about why they would try to sell it at auction which is where I found it online.
I guess it rubs me because I mostly gave thing away to friends and I cannot imagine why anyone would a gift. For for how much? Peanuts I'm sure from the look of the Online Auction House.
Well, what are you going to do,,, as my aunt Molly from Glasgow used to say. I remember it as being one of the very first dry-points I ever made in France perhaps 45 years ago. I immediately fell in love with the process working on copper plates but only made a few because I wasn't set up. I think it was a couple whom I knew who had invited me to come into their engraving studio in Aix to try it out.
It was a 'copy' of an El Greco reproduction I had in those days. A self-portrait he painted in 1584, so Google informs me. But because I was making was a dry-point, the image is reversed and thus the face is backwards so the expression turns to the left instead to the right.
Of course it looks a bit wonky because I didn't know what I was doing, I negligently didn't finish it by ignoring many of the details. The copper plate was the size of a matchbook and I remember being unable to manipulate it in my hand left hand I was also new to gauging into this soft metal.
But those are excuses! The truth, is that I find it full of life today and I'm grateful to see it again after all these years.
About 25 years ago I tried again to make dry-points but this time by using plastic postcards....! Go figure!... (I cannot remember why I didn't again use copper plates which make a real dry-point)
Sometimes, I don't even understand my own thinking...!
But anyway, I fell in love with this El Greco self-portrait that I saw in my early years in France.
El Greco, (The Greek) was born on Crete in 1541, His real name was Domenikos Theotokopoulos, but only after his death did historians call him 'El Greco'. Why 'El Greco' when Crete was ruled by Venetians? It is Spanish because he spent so much of his life working there.
Enjoy!
Addendum- I was telling this story to an artist friend David the other night who wisely suggested another scenario for me. Perhaps the auction was part of deceased estate sale and whomever I had given the print had died? A mystery.
No comments:
Post a Comment