Hanna BEN-DOV (1919–2009) "Chimerical Profile" Circa 1960

Original ink and wash on art paper

This original ink drawing bears witness to Hanna Ben-Dov's mature gestural style in the heart of the 1960s, a golden age of European Lyrical Abstraction.
Through a masterful alternation of dense, almost architectural planes and delicate streaked washes, the artist plays with the white space of the paper to create a striking rhythm. Every brushstroke vibrates with a creative urgency, captured within the intimacy of her studio. Freed from any strict figurative constraints, the composition asserts itself through its raw modernity and its unique capacity to awaken forms in the viewer's mind. A powerful, graphic work, possessed of a rare force of presence, ideal for punctuating a contemporary space with timeless elegance.

Historical Context: The Heyday of the Second School of Paris

Having settled in Paris at the end of the 1940s, Israeli-born artist Hanna Ben-Dov immediately immersed herself in the capital's avant-garde. Close to Constantin Brancusi, she was fully part of the Second School of Paris movement, rubbing shoulders and exhibiting with major artists of her generation such as Joan Mitchell, Jean Degottex, and Zao Wou-Ki. Her ink works from the 1960s mark the peak of her quest to capture pure movement, raw energy, and silence.

The Galerie POPINCOURT Perspective

This Lyrical Abstraction is appreciated as much for its pure gesture as for the images it surreptitiously evokes within us. In this ink drawing of remarkable vitality, our gaze enjoys discovering a highly expressive pareidolia: the graphic, powerful, and stylized head of a Bull Terrier with an upright bearing, emerging with force from the material and the wash.
This is the true secret of the great masters of ink: to give birth to poetry, life, and the accidental figurative evocation from the simple meeting of deep black and the white void of the sheet. A masterful piece for lovers of strong contrasts.

Information

Artist: Hanna Ben-Dov (1919–2009)
Title: Chimerical Profile (Bull Terrier)
Provenance: Artist's studio estate / Private collection (Bears the precious official stamp of the Mairie de Labeaume on the reverse, attesting to the dispersal of her studio).
Period: Circa 1960
Technique: Original ink and wash on art paper
Dimensions of work only: 32.5 × 43 cm (Landscape format)
Signature: Signed “Ben Dov” lower right
Condition: Very good overall condition.

Framing Advice

This work is sold unframed (the ambient photos are presentation suggestions). To enhance this landscape format and its shaded gray wash tones, we recommend framing under anti-reflective glass with a very slim matte black wooden frame or, conversely, a gold-leaf molding to play on a bold classic/modern contrast.

Contents of shipment

Chimerical Profile Hanna Ben-Dov 1960
Certificate of authenticity