Antonio Saura (1930-1998) - Planche 1, Serie "Moi"

In 1974, Antonio Saura works from a series of photographic portraits made by his brother, Carlos Saura. From that exchange emerges one of the most incisive projects of his career: the Moi series.

Far from presenting the self-portrait as an assertion of identity, Saura turns it into a field of tension. From the initial photographic image, he subjects the face to a process of decomposition and pictorial rereading where two gazes coexist: the external one (Carlos's) and the own, filtered through the radical gesture of the artist.

The series materializes in large-format screen prints produced in 1976, where white and black, essential in his plastic language, structure the image. The result is not a faithful representation, but an eroded figure, almost violently breached by the stroke, which dissolves any temptation of realism.

Saura spoke in this context of an “anti-narcissism”: the self is not exalted, it is questioned. In Moi, identity appears traversed by deformation, crossing-out and gestural intensity that define his work.

The present piece corresponds to Planche I of this emblematic series, one of the most significant graphic works within the artist's exploration of the face and self-portrait.

Title: Moi, Planche 1

Year: 1976

Technique: Screen print

Edition: 60 + 12 proofs

Number: 52/60

Paper: Schoeller

Artwork size: 102 x 73.5 cm.

The work belongs to the MOI series, composed of 18 screen prints. Catalog number: 236. Cataloged on page 268 of Antonio Saura, L'Oeuvre Imprimé, Catalogue Raisonné. Patrick Cramer. Genève. 2000.