Original gouache on newspaper created in 1978 by French artist Yvon Taillandier, entitled Flash Gordon. Measuring 70 × 50 cm, this is a unique original work rather than an edition or reproduction.
Taillandier uses a printed Flash Gordon image as the foundation of the composition, transforming its familiar science-fiction figures through energetic applications of gouache. Portions of the original black printed illustration remain visible beneath broad areas of blue, turquoise, green and pale violet, while the vertically printed Flash Gordon title survives along the right-hand edge.
The artist’s painted intervention partially obscures and radically reinterprets the original scene. Sweeping outlines and rounded forms create a large hybrid creature recalling the imaginary inhabitants of “Taillandier-Land,” the personal pictorial universe populated by machines, animals and exuberant human-like beings. The contrast between the mechanically reproduced newspaper image and the freely applied paint gives the work its distinctive visual tension.
Yvon Taillandier was a French painter, sculptor, writer and influential art critic. After contributing for many years to publications including Connaissance des Arts and XXe siècle, he returned to visual art at the end of the 1960s. His colourful, spontaneous and constantly narrative work is frequently considered a precursor to the French Figuration Libre movement, although Taillandier preferred the expression “liberating figuration.”
Throughout his career, he painted on unconventional everyday materials such as newspaper, cardboard, envelopes, books and domestic objects. These humble supports allowed him to unite painting, writing, popular imagery and storytelling while challenging the traditional boundaries of fine art.
Created several years before the official emergence of Figuration Libre, Flash Gordon is a particularly engaging example of Taillandier’s dialogue with comics and mass culture. Combining science-fiction iconography, Art Brut spontaneity and a Pop-inspired use of printed material, this unique gouache would appeal to collectors of post-war French art, comic-related artwork and unconventional works on paper.
Gouache on newspaper
Free figuration - Art Brut - Science Fiction - Comic Strip - Alex Raymond
Good condition, folds
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