Portrait of The-Non-Existent-Bird. - ABDALLAH BENANTEUR.

From 7 to 9 May 2020 - Museum. Institut du monde arabe.

  • Benanteur, Book, Portrait de l’Oiseau-Qui-....

    Portrait of the Non-Existent-Bird, 2004. Artist book, with poem manuscript, watercolours and original imprints. Private Collection. © Abdallah Benanteur. Courtesy Galerie Claude Lemand, Paris.

  • Benanteur, Book. Portrait of The-Non-Existent-Bird.

    Portrait of The-Non-Existent-Bird, 2005. Watercolour, imprint, India ik and collage on paper, 28 x 28 cm. Donation Claude & France Lemand 2018. Museum, Institut du monde arabe, Paris. © The Estate of Abdallah Benanteur. Courtesy Galerie Claude Lemand, Paris.

  • Le Piqué

    Le Piqué,1985. Original etching, signed and numbered, 20,8 x 26,7 cm. Monograph page 89. © Abdallah Benanteur. Courtesy Galerie Claude Lemand, Paris.

  • Benanteur - Aveline, Book, Portrait de l’Oiseau-...

    Claude Aveline, Portrait de l'Oiseau-Qui-N'Existe-Pas, 1996. Artist book by Abdallah Benanteur, in 4 volumes, each one in a different technique. Volume 1, with texts on original imprints, 17 x 39 cm. Monograph pages 200-201. Private Collection. © Abdallah Benanteur. Courtesy Galerie Claude Lemand, Paris.

  • Benanteur, Book, Portrait de l’Oiseau-Qui-....

    Claude Aveline, Portrait de l'Oiseau-Qui-N'Existe-Pas, 2004. Artist book, with original imprints and full page watercolours, 20 x 50 cm. Illustrated in the Monograph. Private Collection. © Abdallah Benanteur. Courtesy Galerie Claude Lemand, Paris.

  • BENANTEUR, Book, Portrait of The-Non-Existent-Bird. 1.

    Portrait of The-Non-Existent-Bird, 1996. Artist book, 39 x 17 cm. One of the 18 matrix used by the artist for his original imprints. Collection Claude and France Lemand. © The Estate of Abdallah Benanteur and The Estate of Claude Aveline.

  • BENANTEUR, Book, Portrait of The-Non-Existent-Bird. 2.

    Portrait de l’Oiseau-Qui-N’Existent-Pas, 1996. Artist book, 37 x 17 cm. One of the 18 matrix used by the artist in his original imprints. Collection Claude and France Lemand. © The Estate of Abdallah Benanteur and The Estate of Claude Aveline.

PORTRAITS OF THE-NON-EXISTENT-BIRD - ABDALLAH BENANTEUR.
Claude Lemand.

Born in 1931 in Mostaganem (Algeria), Abdallah Benanteur, he was brought up in an Algerian family and cul­tural envi­ron­ment, specif­i­cally enthralled by writing and illu­mi­nated manuscripts, by mystic Muslim poetry, by Andalusian music and songs. In 1953, he set­tled down in Paris, which he trans­formed into his own cap­ital of life, cre­ation and inter­na­tional outreach.

He was influ­enced by the great mas­ters of the museums in France and Europe, yet he man­aged to create his own per­sonal œuvre, pro­ducing lyrical land­scapes infused with the light of his Mediterranean home­land and that of his adopted Brittany, as well as land­scapes that are some­times abstract or dotted with sil­hou­ettes of people walking.

During the 1980s, the bird was a recur­ring theme throughout Abdallah Benanteur’s etch­ings. He pro­duced black and white engrav­ings in which the birds are the humans’ vic­tims (Oiseau mort, Marée noire, Oiseau triste) as well as colour engrav­ings that depict free birds flying (Oiseau, Le Piqué).

Reading Claude Aveline’s poem in 1994 trig­gered an out­standing cre­ativity for Benanteur, leading him to design hun­dreds of Portraits of The-Non-Existent-Bird between 1995 and 2004, that dec­o­rate the pages of twenty unique books. The poem’s text has been typo-graphed, inlaid or hand-written by the artist, in both French and in sev­eral trans­la­tions.

He used var­ious tech­niques to exe­cute the birds such as water­colour, India ink, cut-outs and embossing, ink wash and etch­ings. At the same time as dec­o­rating these books, Benanteur also drew and painted around a hun­dred indi­vidual works on paper, mea­suring 30 x 30 cm or 65 x 50 cm. Each bird has its own shape, atti­tude, ‘psy­chology’ and des­ig­nated colours.

Sustaining his momentum, Benanteur also pro­duced sev­eral other books revolving around the theme of the bird. An example of such book is the famous poem Birds are dying in Galilee com­posed by the great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, which is now part of the British Museum’s col­lec­tions.

Copyright © Galerie Claude Lemand 2012.

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