Enfants et ballons
(Children and balls)

1973, dry point copper engraving, 24.9 x 18 cm
final proof on Zerkal paper 56.5x38
31 copiess

This work - produced at the end of 1972 - is truly unique among Bertrand’s works because of its subject; it also was the last dry point engraving produced by the artist. Bertrand rarely dealt with the theme of childhood and only did so at the beginning of his career when he drew some sketches of his friends’ children and painted one or two portraits as well as a drawing representing a communicant. Furthermore, the technique that he used to create the image is also very unusual: he used drawings dating back to 1956 and which were surprisingly based on photographs that he probably took himself and which showed his two godchildren playing with a ball. In two of these drawings, Bertrand superposed a bird over the children; that bird was directly inspired by a weather vane that the children used as a toy.
The clear deformations of the hands and feet – which are more mannerist than expressionist – eliminate the realistic approach of photography. The abstraction of figures from day to day life confers a ritual atmosphere to the scene which looks like a strange pantomime, played with some sort of dreamlike weightlessness.