Luc Tuymans Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings: Volume 1
1972–1994
Edited with text by Eva Meyer-Hermann
The first volume of a comprehensive record of paintings by the prolific Belgian artist Luc Tuymans highlights his generative early work.
Credited with a key role in the revival of painting in the 1990s, Tuymans continues to produce subtle, and at times unsettling, works that engage with history, technology, and everyday life. This first volume in a catalogue raisonné of Tuymans’s paintings surveys nearly two hundred works that were vital to his artistic development. The years 1972 to 1994 witnessed the maturation of his signature method of painting from preexisting imagery—such as magazine images, Polaroids, and television footage—as well as his first solo exhibitions. Also dating from this period are many of his seminal canvases, including Gaskamer and Schwarzheide (both 1986), which were part of the artist’s first gallery solo exhibition in 1988; Die Zeit (1988), a four-part work shown in his critically acclaimed Documenta presentation in 1992; along with Der diagnostische Blick (1992), a group of ten poignant portraits of the ailing human body.
The catalogue features an editor\s note by Eva Meyer-Hermann and an illustrated chronology with archival images and installation views of the works in this volume. It also includes brilliant new photography of each of the paintings. This publication is a testament to Tuymans’s persistent assertion of the relevance and importance of painting—a conviction that he maintains even in today’s digital world, when his work continues to be a touchstone for artists and scholars.
Publisher: David Zwirner Books / Yale University Press
Artists: Luc Tuymans
Contributors: Eva Meyer-Hermann
Designer: McCall Associates
Publication Date: 2017
Binding: Hardcover with slipcase
Dimensions: 9 1/4 x 12 in | 23.2 x 30.5 cm
Pages: 492
Reproductions: 245 color
ISBN: 9781941701614
Retail: $200 | £165 | €224
Status: Available
Luc Tuymans
Luc Tuymans (b. 1958, Mortsel) is a Belgian artist who is internationally known for his paintings that engage equally with questions of history and its representation as with quotidian subject matter cast in unfamiliar and eerie light. Painted from preexisting imagery, his works often appear slightly out-of-focus and sparsely colored, like third-degree abstractions from reality. Whereas earlier works were based on magazine pictures, drawings, television footage, and Polaroids, recent source images include material accessed online and the artist’s own iPhone photos, printed out and sometimes re-photographed several times. Since the 1980s, Tuymans has steadily exhibited in the United States, Europe, and abroad, and his work is represented in major museum collections.
Eva Meyer-Hermann
Eva Meyer-Hermann is a German art historian who has worked for international museums and major private collections for over twenty-five years. She was formerly a curator at the Krefelder Kunstmuseen, Krefeld, and was later director of the Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Nuremberg. Afterwards, she was both director and curator of two private art collections in Switzerland, before becoming senior curator at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven. Since 2006, she has been an independent curator and writer.
