Major new monograph on the paintings of the Romanian artist, Victor Man.

Ripeness is black, and his greys and modulated blacks are non-minimalist, anti-hard edge. They are alien to the uniform, pigmentary, black paintings of Motherwell, Kline, Newman, or Still, which originate in a conceptually sensorial take on colour.

Man’s work also differs from the overly textured, narcissistic, and self-consciously hand-crafted blacks of Hartung or Soulages.

The blue-green-black tones in Victor Man are figments rather than pigments. They are reminiscent of the medieval grisaille, that consummate technique for encapsulating a dazzling, colourful world of apparitions into infinite shades of grey and blacks.

Co-published with Galerie Neu, Berlin.