Illustrated book with five etching and aquatints, relief printed; one etching and aquatint, relief printed, folded and mounted on lace; and heliogravure text
Not on view
The most dramatic component of La Femme de ma vie (The woman of my life) is the large foldout aquatint printed in brilliant violet. The entire sheet is backed with pink lace, underscoring its evocation of feminine sexuality, and the same lace is used for the cover. Fautrier made the other prints, interspersed with the text pages, by cutting up extra copies of the large folded print. On the text pages he transcribed the book's title over and over in an increasingly manic handwriting that suggests romantic obsession. A poem by renowned French poet André Frénaud, also titled La Femme de ma vie, appears at the end of the book. Fautrier was a pioneer of Art informel (formless art), a European movement of the late 1940s and 1950s that loosely corresponds to American Abstract Expressionism in its emphasis on painterly abstraction. Although he is best known as a painter, Fautrier was also a committed printmaker; he made most of his prints to illustrate books.
New to the Print Collection: Matisse to Bourgeois, June 13, 2012–January 7, 2013.
Explore more
From MoMA Design Store
Installation views
We have identified this work in the following photos from our exhibition history.
Licensing
Artwork or archival images
If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA's collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).
Audio and film clips
MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit Circulating Film and Video Library.
Text from a publication or the archives
If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA's archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].
Feedback
This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please fill out this feedback form.