Pierre Alechinsky "Mongolfier", 1966. Signed Alechinsky; signed, titled and dated on the reverse. Oil on canvas. 130 x 103 cm. Provenance: Galerie Birch, Copenhagen. "Any idea that is too precise at the outset - it can blind one to new ideas that might otherwise appear while work is in progress. Everything significant occurs within this creative 'meanwhile' (which is one of the mysteries of art) Before is irrelevant ... And after we stand in front of a fait accompli, a definite result, definitely locked in its own moment in time, and which we call a painting?. (Pierre Alechinsky in "Interview with Michael Gibson" in Pierre Alechinsky: Margin and Centre, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1987, s. 15) In the mid-1960s Pierre Alechinsky paints a number of large canvases where a myriad of small figures grow out of a surface dominated by a diversity in colour and arabesque-like, meandering lines. The painting is made with great intensity and spontaneity, but also with sublime mastery of the method. In the catalogue for an exhibition in 1969 at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, the artist describes - in line with the above quote - his painting process as an internal and open dialogue between the eyes and the hand, contemplation and movement. A self-forgetfulness or a straightforward trance in which the eyes and the hand in joyous moments meet up in surprising and unexpected connections (Pierre Alechinsky: "Notes" in "Alechinsky" Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, and more. 1969, p. 15). The painting "Mongolfier" from 1966 is an excellent work from the period, which since its acquisition by Galerie Birch - around 1970 - has been in the same family?s possession. In 1964 Pierre Alechinsky had the first of several exhibitions at the gallery. Estimate in DKK : 600000 / 800000