Les dos
(The back)

1937, linoengraving, 14.7 x 19.7 cm
Final proof on rice paper 38 x 25.4 cm
15 copies

In the biographical notes that he wrote under various requests, Gaston Bertrand tended to present himself as a “painter and engraver”. Indeed, one might say that he actually began his career as an engraver given that his first plastic creations were the seven linoengravings produced in 1934 (apart from the sketch books that he had drawn as a debutant artist).
Gaston Bertrand was a completely self-taught engraver and he learned the engraving technique by himself. This reflects his personality as well as his taste for solitude. Gaston Bertrand started to paint in 1935 - one year after his first engraving experiments - and, as he himself admitted, he also was a self-taught painter. What he learned in the academies was substantially limited to some drawing techniques.
In this work, the figure seen from the back actually becomes the subject by multiplying the shapes in an incredibly expressive manner. To do so, Gaston Bertrand momentarily abandoned wood engraving and used a softer material, i.e. linoleum. For the first time, he decided to empty the material as much as possible, with the intact part of the linoleum providing the dark areas of the engraving in order to obtain a large contour effect similar to a drawing.