1194 - Nissan Engel, Crepuscules, colour etching with embossing, artist's proof Essai, signed

Nissan Engel, Crepuscules, colour etching with embossing, artist's proof Essai, signed Colour etching with embossing on paper, mounted on backing board, signed 'Nissan Engel' lower right, titled 'Crepuscules' lower centre and inscribed 'Essai' lower left. Against an ochre-yellow ground shimmering across the surface rises a tower-like structure built up from rectangular blocks in black, white, red and turquoise set one above the other like a collage, standing out in relief through the embossing. A large red disc sits at upper left, a smaller one below it to the right; in the lower area red and blue colour fields and white, writing-like scribbled marks loosen the composition. Good condition. Image 78.5 x 59 cm (HxW). Mount, behind glass, framed in a light-coloured moulding, overall size 97.5 x 78 cm (HxW). Nissan Engel (1931 Haifa - 2016) studied at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem and, after a longer stay in New York, moved to Paris in the mid-1950s, where he lived and worked until the end of his life. He was a painter, draughtsman and etcher and produced numerous collages; characteristic are his strongly coloured etchings in which figures and architecture remain merely suggested. In the French printmaking trade the inscription 'Essai' denotes a trial proof outside the numbered edition, pulled by the artist to check the printing result; such sheets exist in small numbers and carry the artist's hand directly.