Planets | Assouline

Combining geometrical purity and gestural grandeur, Thierry W. Despont combines architectural skills and painter’s virtuosity in this spectacular COLLECTION of majestic, daunting and singularly attracting orbs, turning his struggle with corrosive materials and richly textured pigments into a spiritual achievement. A compound of restless collage and swirling pigments, each orb is animated by a life of its own: colorful magma breaking through the scorched surface of the canvas, white streaks flickering against the encroaching and abysmal darkness of a stark black background that seems about to engulf it. Mysterious and luminous, intimate and remote, they conjure up the awe of man in front of a cosmic world he both reveres and dreads. Beyond the eruptive, cataclysmic forces animating them, the orbs are inwardly radiant, animated by a life that seems to emerge from their depths. Born and raised in France, Mr. Despont is a graduate of the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts and holds a Masters Degree in Urban Design and City Planning from Harvard University. “Architecte DPLG,” Mr. Despont is a knight of the French Legion of Honor and a knight of the Arts and Letters. Based in New York City, he is co-author of Restoring the Statue of Liberty (McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1986), Houses, a COLLECTIONS of his residential projects, and Le Bateau Ivre, a folio of his drawings illustrating Arthur Rimbaud’s poem, “Le Bateau Ivre.” Mr. Despont is also the author of Masks, Studio and Planets published by Assouline.