Roman Cieślewicz (1930-1996) - “presqu’elle”, 1976 Original Signed Collage / Photomontage -

Roman Cieślewicz (1930–1996) — “Presqu’elle”, 1976 Original signed collage / photomontage | “Change of Climate” series – Galerie L’Œil de Bœuf exhibition, 1977

Hook Between torn earth and immaculate lace, a surreal apparition rises from the ground like a mythical birth: discover Presqu’elle, one of Roman Cieślewicz’s most poetic and unsettling works.

Key details of the work

• Artist: Roman Cieślewicz (1930–1996)
• Title: Presqu’elle
• Year: 1976
• Style: Surrealist photomontage
• Period: 20th century (1970s)
• Technique: Original collage / photomontage on paper
• Collage dimensions: 24 × 19.5 cm
• Framed dimensions: 37.5 × 35 cm (black frame with silver fillet + white mount)
• Signature: Signed and dated “R. Cieślewicz 1976” lower right; title “PRESQU’ELLE” lower left
• Series: “Change of Climate” (1976–1977)
• Exhibition: Galerie L’Œil de Bœuf, Paris, 1977
• Provenance: Anne de Clippel Collection, Brussels (original label preserved on verso)

Artwork description Presqu’elle (1976)
is an exceptional and deeply poetic work by Roman Cieślewicz, a major figure in European photomontage. In this surreal collage of rare intensity, the artist fragments the female body so that it literally emerges from the earth. Two legs sheathed in delicate white lace stockings rise from torn ground, like a telluric apparition or a mythical birth.

Suspended between the mineral and the sky, they embody vulnerability, desire, and mystery all at once. The background, in hazy sepia tones, evokes an infinite desert landscape beneath a heavy sky. The striking contrast between the fineness of the lace and the roughness of the earth creates a hypnotic tension, somewhere between absurd humor, eroticism, and metaphysical enigma.

The title Presqu’elle (“Almost Her”) subtly plays on this ambiguity: almost a woman, almost a human being, almost a landscape… a presence that is both familiar and radically other. This piece belongs to the emblematic “Change of Climate” series (1976–1977), one of the artist’s most important bodies of work from the 1970s.

Technique: Original photomontage on paper

Condition: Excellent – colors perfectly preserved. The frame shows only minor, light signs of wear with no impact on the work itself.

Complete biography of Roman Cieślewicz Roman Cieślewicz (13 January 1930, Lwów – 21 January 1996, Paris)

He was one of the greatest European graphic designers and photomonteurs of the 20th century. Born in Poland (now Ukraine), he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. After working in Warsaw as art director of the magazine Ty i Ja, he moved to Paris in 1963. He quickly became a key figure on the French scene:

• Art director of Elle magazine (1965–1969)
• Art director of the M.A.F.I.A. agency
• Collaborations with Vogue, the Centre Pompidou, Libération, and others
• Naturalized French in 1971
• Taught at ESAG Penninghen and ENSAD
• Member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI)

His work, of exceptional visual power, combines photomontage, typography, and Surrealism. He created images that “stay with you” and provoke thought. In the 1970s he developed the Figury Symetryczne and Change of Climate (1976–1977) series, to which Presqu’elle belongs.

He also made the film Change of Climate in 1979. He exhibited in major museums (Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Centre Pompidou, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, MoMA, etc.) and received numerous international awards. Importance and collector appeal of this work Presqu’elle is a major piece from the “Change of Climate” series (1976–1977), considered one of the high points of Cieślewicz’s production in the 1970s. This series marks a turning point in his work: the body is fragmented, deconstructed, and reinscribed into a surreal landscape, blending black humor, eroticism, and poetry. Presqu’elle is a perfect example through its formal purity, symbolic strength, and evocative title.

Key strengths for a collector:

• Unique original work (not an edition)
• Hand-signed and dated by the artist
• Belongs to an emblematic series from 1976–1977
• Exhibited in 1977 at Galerie L’Œil de Bœuf in Paris (dedicated exhibition of the “Change of Climate” series)
• Direct provenance from the Anne de Clippel Collection (Brussels), with original exhibition label preserved on verso
• This work, coming directly from the 1977 “Change of Climate” exhibition at Galerie L’Œil de Bœuf, is one of the very rare pieces from the series still in private hands. Most of the collages shown in that historic exhibition are now in public institutions (MAD Paris, MAC VAL, etc.).
• Extremely rare on the market Provenance & Complete history Anne de Clippel Collection 7, avenue Winston Churchill – 1080 Brussels Original label on verso: “Changement de Climat – Presqu’elle – Collage”

• name and address of the collection This label confirms that the work was exhibited as part of the “Change of Climate” series. Exhibition: Galerie L’Œil de Bœuf, Paris – 1977 Solo or series-focused exhibition of Roman Cieślewicz’s “Change of Climate, collages”. The work was therefore shown publicly very shortly after its creation (1976), in one of the Parisian galleries active at the time in graphic art and photomontage.