September 11th is a time marker (not related to the tragic event) for me.
Actually, in 1993, I completed the first version of the Corrida, aka The Matador.
I didn’t know that it will become my signature painting, spreading successfully all over the world, on front cover magazines, beach towels and tattoos to name a few (more detailed coming in posts this week).
20 years of success, from the sale I made at my first appearance at the World Festival of Underwater Pictures in Antibes in 1993 where I show the freshly done painting, to the walls of the Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, Florida (Shark ! exhibition May 2012-January 2013) including a permanent display at the bottom of a quarry in Thetford-Mine, Québec (since August 2010).
Schedule of the making of the painting and pictures of the posing session with my neighbor and friend Jean-Michel making passes at the top of the stool will be provided later (still in my French studio) !
While working for the set design of the French opera Carmen, a production of the Salzburger Landestheater (Austria), I looked for documentation about this story involving a bullfighter at the city library of Caen (Normandy, France) and I bought some books (no internet at this time….). Browsing the pictures, I got the idea of an underwater Matador playing with a shark (a great white, not a bull shark as I didn’t know much about it).
Nothing related with an interest in bullfighting for which I can’t stand for.
The original Corrida was a 46×38 cm, 19″x15″, oil on linen canvas, completed and signed 9/11, 1993, opus lec368, first exhibited at the 20th World Festival of Underwater Pictures in Antibes in November 1993 where it was sold to a returning customer and art collector (Courbevoie, France). (Below, the original painting during Pascal’s Retrospective Exhibition 1977-2007 at the Paris Dive show, with Claude Wesly from the Team Cousteau).
An edition of postcards was made in 1993, then an artprint edition (of 3000, sold out). In 1999, the Uzzi Company (Fort Lauderdale) launched a large beach towel and tee-shirts spreading my picture over the world. A new edition of the Uzzi beach towel started in May 2012. New multiples on paper and canvas as signed limited edition and merchandizing followed.
The Matador made the buzz in publishing since 1993 and was featured in 4 front covers of magazines in Israel, Greece, China, and USA.
And… my picture was copied for fun, or stolen, used without agreement… the artist’s cross to bear.
I’m sure lucky to have achieved my signature painting 20 years ago, and to have seen it enjoyed by thousands of patrons and friends supporting my work. I can’t be enough thankful for that.
Talk to you in 20 years !!! Olé !
