Contact!

 

Bernard Childs

  1910 - 1985 (biography)

1957  

color power drypoint and burin engraving. 

13 1/2 x 15 1/2" platemark 

pencil, lower left 

Epreuve d'essai #7 

dated after signature; inscribed epreuve d'essai #7; inscribed verso in pencil by Judith Childs: "Contact!" A unique proof. JC 

 

sheet of cream Arches wove 

unique proof 

not published 

JC157 

SOLD

In the 1950s at Atelier 17, Childs developed an abstract pictorial language in which he worked with archetypal signs and symbols and with the methods of surrealistic "automatism." Childs used electrically powered tools to engrave on his plates in a gestural, abstract expressionist approach. He was able to create velvet-like structures and a vivid, skilful linear direction to his prints.

In "Contact" Childs used colors experimentally, this unique impression reading as an orange-red. He printed this in his studio at 4 Rue de Université, Paris in a total edition of ten proofs, this being number seven.

“Contact" was exhibited in numerous international shows throughout the mid fifties and sixties. There are three impressions from this edition in public museums.