L'Oiseau de Minerve, 2015
etching, roulette and aquatint
Editon of 60
The trompe l'oeil setting for the owl recalls the imaginary alphabet created for the Bibliothèque de Babel.
Desmazières is an intaglio printmaker of the Art Fantastique school, whose artists find their aesthetic antecedents in Bresdin, Piranesi, Callot and Durer. In addition to prints he is well known for his illustrated artist books and portfolios. Erik Desmazières is considered one of the greatest contemporary printmakers, and has had more than 20 museum retrospectives in Europe, Canada and the United States during the past few years. In 2009 he was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts de l'Institut de France. Desmazières was born in Rabat, Morocco, in 1948 and resides in Paris. He is a graduate of the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris and studied printmaking at the Cours du Soir de la Ville de Paris. He also serves as president of La Societe des Peintres Graveurs Francais.
