Robert Detheux (1932-2010) - Portrait surréaliste d’une mécène - 1976
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€ 50
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Selected by Giulia Couzzi
Master’s in culture and arts innovation, with a decade in 20th-21st century Italian art.
Estimate € 200 - € 250
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Robert Detheux, Portrait surréaliste d’une mécène – 1976, mixed media on cardboard, 51 × 42.5 cm, signed, original edition, Belgium.
AI-assisted summary
Description from the seller
Robert Detheux (1932-2010) – The Patron – 1976
Artist: Robert Detheux (Brussels, 1932 – Tournai, 2010)
Title of the work: The Patron
Date: 1976
Signature: Signed and dated “Detheux 76” at the top right.
Technique:
Mixed media on cardboard. Chalk, pastels with highlights, scratched and reworked background. The face and the headdress are laid in white and gray, the garment in red, the background in pink and mauve. Thick material, visible hatching, cardboard left exposed in places.
Dimensions: 51 × 42.5 cm
Condition: Very good overall. The material is held together, the white of the face strong, the signature legible. Studio cardboard, deliberate grain and scratching, some handling marks at the edge, with no impact on the figure.
Sold unframed.
Provenance: Artist’s studio collection (acquired directly).
Description:
Work from 1976. Detheux was forty-four years old. The portrait of a woman, a common subject of the 1970s, here pushed to the headdress.
The face is three-quarter, pale, almost metallic. One eye open on the left, a closed mouth, the nose barely indicated. The neck and shoulders descend into a red garment, with a wide collar, gray material over it.
Nothing is mundane. The white is too thick, the gaze too fixed.
The headdress is the subject. Large, irregular, it spills over the head. On the left, an animal profile or a mask, with its own eye. On the right, a second face, in profile, carved into the gray.
The woman does not wear a hat: she wears other heads. Hence the reading of “patron” — a figure of commission, of salon, of splendor — inverted. The elegance is there. She is already inhabited.
The background, rose and mauve, scratched, does not describe anything. It isolates the figure. We are in Belgian surrealism of the 1970s: hybrid, textured, a face that is not a single face. Detheux does not cite. He constructs his own appearance.
Signed, dated, in good format and on a rare medium for the collection: a major piece from the feminine period, for lovers of drawing and Belgian mixed-media technique who appreciate hybrid figures.
Artist biography: Born in Brussels in 1932 and deceased in Tournai in 2010, Robert Detheux is a distinctive figure of Belgian art in the 20th century.
A graduate of the Saint-Luc Institute, Fine Arts in Brussels, he taught graphic expression at the Tournai Academy until 1996, while pursuing a personal body of work of great coherence.
From the 1950s, he established himself with a very personal surrealist and graphic language. He received the Prize for Belgian Young Painting in 1953, 1954 and 1971.
The following decades deepen the same territory. 1970s: body and female face, hybrid figures, textures. This work belongs to that period. 1980s-1990s: grotesque, eroticism, black humor. 2000s-2010: spectral portraits, apparitions, creatures.
Little shown during his lifetime, Detheux worked freely. The revelation of his studio archive (nearly 1,500 works) made this coherence visible.
His drawing, demanding and immediately recognizable, now attracts collectors of Belgian surrealism in Belgium, Spain and across Europe.
Seller's Story
About SR Fine Art
With nearly 28 years of experience in the art market, I am passionate about rediscovering artists’ studios and bringing their works to a wide audience on Catawiki.
I specialize in Belgian and European modern and contemporary art. My flagship collection is the studio archive of Robert Detheux (nearly 1,500 works on paper). I also offer surrealist drawings, beautiful abstract paintings from the 1950s, magnificent nude photographs by Michel Pinel, contemporary paintings, Cobra compositions, and works by Marcus de Vestele, Gundi Falk, René Mels, Eugène Eechaut and many others.
From intimate drawings to large formats, there is something for every taste and every budget. The vast majority of my auctions start at 1 € with no reserve price, giving everyone the chance to acquire unique pieces.
Every shipment is prepared with the utmost care using professional museum-quality packaging to ensure perfect condition upon arrival.
Join my growing community of satisfied clients and follow my new auctions to discover rare works from these exceptional studios.
Thank you for your trust and happy bidding!
SR Fine Art
Translated by Google TranslateRobert Detheux (1932-2010) – The Patron – 1976
Artist: Robert Detheux (Brussels, 1932 – Tournai, 2010)
Title of the work: The Patron
Date: 1976
Signature: Signed and dated “Detheux 76” at the top right.
Technique:
Mixed media on cardboard. Chalk, pastels with highlights, scratched and reworked background. The face and the headdress are laid in white and gray, the garment in red, the background in pink and mauve. Thick material, visible hatching, cardboard left exposed in places.
Dimensions: 51 × 42.5 cm
Condition: Very good overall. The material is held together, the white of the face strong, the signature legible. Studio cardboard, deliberate grain and scratching, some handling marks at the edge, with no impact on the figure.
Sold unframed.
Provenance: Artist’s studio collection (acquired directly).
Description:
Work from 1976. Detheux was forty-four years old. The portrait of a woman, a common subject of the 1970s, here pushed to the headdress.
The face is three-quarter, pale, almost metallic. One eye open on the left, a closed mouth, the nose barely indicated. The neck and shoulders descend into a red garment, with a wide collar, gray material over it.
Nothing is mundane. The white is too thick, the gaze too fixed.
The headdress is the subject. Large, irregular, it spills over the head. On the left, an animal profile or a mask, with its own eye. On the right, a second face, in profile, carved into the gray.
The woman does not wear a hat: she wears other heads. Hence the reading of “patron” — a figure of commission, of salon, of splendor — inverted. The elegance is there. She is already inhabited.
The background, rose and mauve, scratched, does not describe anything. It isolates the figure. We are in Belgian surrealism of the 1970s: hybrid, textured, a face that is not a single face. Detheux does not cite. He constructs his own appearance.
Signed, dated, in good format and on a rare medium for the collection: a major piece from the feminine period, for lovers of drawing and Belgian mixed-media technique who appreciate hybrid figures.
Artist biography: Born in Brussels in 1932 and deceased in Tournai in 2010, Robert Detheux is a distinctive figure of Belgian art in the 20th century.
A graduate of the Saint-Luc Institute, Fine Arts in Brussels, he taught graphic expression at the Tournai Academy until 1996, while pursuing a personal body of work of great coherence.
From the 1950s, he established himself with a very personal surrealist and graphic language. He received the Prize for Belgian Young Painting in 1953, 1954 and 1971.
The following decades deepen the same territory. 1970s: body and female face, hybrid figures, textures. This work belongs to that period. 1980s-1990s: grotesque, eroticism, black humor. 2000s-2010: spectral portraits, apparitions, creatures.
Little shown during his lifetime, Detheux worked freely. The revelation of his studio archive (nearly 1,500 works) made this coherence visible.
His drawing, demanding and immediately recognizable, now attracts collectors of Belgian surrealism in Belgium, Spain and across Europe.
Seller's Story
About SR Fine Art
With nearly 28 years of experience in the art market, I am passionate about rediscovering artists’ studios and bringing their works to a wide audience on Catawiki.
I specialize in Belgian and European modern and contemporary art. My flagship collection is the studio archive of Robert Detheux (nearly 1,500 works on paper). I also offer surrealist drawings, beautiful abstract paintings from the 1950s, magnificent nude photographs by Michel Pinel, contemporary paintings, Cobra compositions, and works by Marcus de Vestele, Gundi Falk, René Mels, Eugène Eechaut and many others.
From intimate drawings to large formats, there is something for every taste and every budget. The vast majority of my auctions start at 1 € with no reserve price, giving everyone the chance to acquire unique pieces.
Every shipment is prepared with the utmost care using professional museum-quality packaging to ensure perfect condition upon arrival.
Join my growing community of satisfied clients and follow my new auctions to discover rare works from these exceptional studios.
Thank you for your trust and happy bidding!
SR Fine Art
Translated by Google TranslateDetails
Artist
Robert Detheux (1932-2010)
Sold with frame
No
Sold by
Owner or reseller
Edition
Original
Title of artwork
Portrait surréaliste d’une mécène - 1976
Technique
Mixed media
Signature
Signed
Country of origin
Belgium
Year
1976
Condition
Good condition
Height
51 cm
Width
42.5 cm
Style
Surrealism
Period
1970-1980
Sold by
