Abstract composition, etching with aquatint by Jacqueline Debutler, circa 1970

Etching with aquatint (unframed) in black, grey, olive and turquoise by French artist Jacqueline Debutler (b. 1932, Compiègne), the composition built around a constellation of lyrical biomorphic forms set into a soft aquatint field, with a single turquoise disc anchoring the right of the design. Signed ‘Debutler’ in pencil lower right and numbered 9/15 lower left — a small edition characteristic of her atelier-published épreuves. Debutler trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Amiens before four years of post-graduate study in Paris with Johnny Friedländer, the celebrated École de Paris engraver whose atelier shaped much of post-war French printmaking. Her etchings were published in Paris by Éditions Hautot and Éditions de la Tortue and distributed in the United States by Editions AAA, with examples held in the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris. The concentrated period of her etching activity spans roughly 1969 to 1976, anchored by exhibitions at the World Bank Art Society in Washington in 1971 and Galerie Pierre Hautot in Paris in 1974. Printed on heavy deckled-edge mould-made paper. Acquired directly from the artist’s family, with supporting archive material. France, circa 1970-1975.