Pascal Bonafoux Bücher

Die über 80 Selbstportraits in Pascal Bonafouxs neuem Buch zeigen alle Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606–1669), den berühmtesten Maler der Niederlande im 17. Jahrhundert. Kein anderer Künstler ist so bekannt für die Darstellung der eigenen Person wie der in Leiden geborene Sohn eines Müllers, der in seinen 63 Lebensjahren einen kometenhaften Aufstieg zum gefeiertsten Künstler seiner Zeit wie auch den finanziellen Ruin im Alter erlebt hat. Aber wie prekär die Lebenslage auch war, Rembrandt hörte nie auf, sich selbst zu malen. Zunächst als Physiognomie- und Kostümstudien gedacht, entwickeln sich Rembrandts Selbstdarstellungen schnell zu einem gefragten Motiv in Sammlerkreisen und werden in ganz Europa hoch geschätzt als Belege seiner außergewöhnlichen künstlerischen Begabung. Ob jugendlich oder altersweise, ob versteckt im großen Historiengemälde oder kleine Studie, ob Malerei, Radierung oder Zeichnung – des Künstlers Konterfei zieht sich in seinem Werk durch alle Zeiten, Gattungen, Formate und Techniken. Pascal Bonafoux (geb. 1949), ausgewiesener Spezialist für das Selbstportrait in der Kunst und Professor für Kunstgeschichte an der Universität Paris VIII, liefert zum 350. Todestag Rembrandts, den die Kunstwelt am 4. Oktober 2019 begeht, ein neues Standardwerk, das erstmals alle derzeit bekannten und gesicherten Selbstbilder versammelt.

Les portraits de Rembrandt first published in France by aEditions du Seuil, 2019--Colophon.

Supremely successful at the beginning of his life; lonely, bankrupt and virtually ignored at its end, Rembrandt produced some of the most powerful and psychologically penetrating works in the whole of world art. Poverty, illness, the deaths of his wife, children and devoted mistress - nothing deflected him from his inner vision and his unique handling of which would change the course of painting for ever.

A volume dedicated to Pablo Picasso’s self-portraits from his earliest works to his final years, a number of which are published here for the first time. Pablo Picasso’s life and art has been depicted in monographs, biographies, and movies, but until now his self-portraits as a body of work have not received the focus they deserve. Picasso represented himself ceaselessly throughout his long career, whether in a dashed-off pencil sketch, as a flourish at the bottom of a letter, or on a giant painted canvas. At the suggestion of Picasso’s widow Jacqueline, the distinguished art historian Pascal Bonafoux began studying Picasso’s self-portraits more than forty years ago. This meticulously researched book presents the fruits of his decades-long project. From the first self-portrait attributed to Picasso in 1894, when he was a thirteen-year-old boy, until his final self- portrait in 1972, a year before his death, Bonafoux charts the evolution of the artist’s life and art. Here is Picasso as a student; as a young bohemian; as an impetuous artist in Paris; as harlequin; as lover, husband, and father; and finally, as an old man confronting his mortality. The book comprises approximately 170 drawings, paintings, and photographs, some from private collections and previously unpublished, bringing together for the first time the self-portraits of this genius of twentieth-century art.