Pierre Soulages, Etching XII, 1957, etching; recipient of the Grand Prix, 3rd International Exhibition of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana, 1959.
The exhibition included fifteen etchings made between 1952 and 1961. Pierre Soulages is one of the artists that, in the mid-1950s, managed to say something new in a language proper to graphic art, thus giving it its autonomy. He specialised in etchings and aquatints. The monolithic “Soulagesian” signs were made by removing all empty surfaces and retaining only the strokes made by a scraper. He is one of the more prominent representatives of the European Art Informel, known also as the master of black. He once said about his work: “My instrument is not black but the light reflected from the black.”