Personnage gravé à la main bleue
(Engraved figure with blue hand)

1982, oil painting on canvas, 81 x 65 cm
Private coll.
N° inv. 1473

Bertrand’s “arbitrary” figurations were even more inventive and free than his portraits. They arouse from the many sketches drawn for the purpose of commissioned portraits; indeed, these figures are derived from the precise notations taken by the artist from “live models”. As the artist himself wrote “…a figure is created on the basis of a portrait’s preparatory drawings. Figures represent a plastic exercise on various levels, […] and benefit from a completely different vision than the one applied for portraits: there is no search for resemblance but rather some predominant impressions realized with the greatest freedom from the initial model. Thus, they cannot be considered as portraits”.
Among various India ink drawings produced in 1970 and for which Philippe Roberts-Jones (who was at the time chief curator of the Royal Museums) posed with a drape, Bertrand chose two sketches which gave rise – almost ten years later- to three interpretations, including Personnage gravé à la main bleue.