Lippstreu, Alexis
France, 1972
Alexis Lippstreu began drawing compulsively about ten years ago. Anything he does not draw he remains silent about, and when he does express himself in response to a direct request he does so in breathy monosyllables that hang by a thread. He has never spoken about his motivations or the meaning of his creations. His autism raises his art to the level of mystery. However, the particularity of his work—which “recreates” paintings by old masters—offers some clues. Only the bodies and faces, with an almost supernatural presence, seem worthy of being recreated; their backdrops and landscapes are at best handled as structural lines or, more often, fade into a twilight storm of pencil shading. The simplicity of Lippstreu’s drawing heightens the humanity of the masterpieces he interprets, to the point that we see them in their pure essence, their quintessence.
