After Atelier 17 became re-established in Paris in 1950, younger artists made their way to work there. Among them was Belgian artist, Pierre Alechinsky (born 1927) who began living and working in Paris in 1951. That same year Alechinsky organized the final CoBraA exhibition in Liège, Belgium.
"The personal quality of hand-writing greatly appealed to CoBrA artists. 'The important thing,’ Alechinsky wrote, ‘is to discover an inner script … with which we can explore ourselves organically.’ Alechinsky said that he painted as if he was a spinning-top, unable to control his own movements. This is evident in The Night (Le Nuit) in which twists and twirls of white on a black ground evoke luminous night forms."
*Tate Gallery label, July 2008
Alechinsky’s approach would seem to grow out of Hayter’s interest in automatic drawing or engraving as a kind of automatism. We have on offer a color trial proof, Le Nuit, which was printed from a plate made at Atelier 17 in Paris in 1952 and annotated, "monotype." It was later published in 1968 as part of Alechinsky’s folio, Hayterophilies. Our impression expresses a tenderness with soft-toned blue and yellow set against the activity and energy of the gestures
