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Roger Platiel

"My work is not more abstract than nature is."

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Notes of biography

Of German parents who fled the Hitler regime, Roger Platiel was born in Paris in the first days of 1934. His childhood and his youth were irreparably marked by Nazism and the war that condemned him to insecurity and wandering during these years, leaving him with an irreconcilable memory. Roger Platiel spent his childhood in Denmark, in England and then in Switzerland. He starts his art studies in 1952 at the Werkakademie de Kassel, where his parents enrolled him two years earlier. He is attracted to engraving, he come under the direction of Professor Hans Leistikow. He moves to Paris in 1956, signs up with the Atelier 17 of Stanley William Hayter whose process he discovers and becomes his student from 1956 to 1958.
After a trip to the United States and Mexico in 1959, he moves back to Paris the following year, to Montparnasse, and works again with Hayter. In his early period, he chooses with no uncertainty to use plastics - ‘Such is the privilege of travelers without passes and without baggage’ writes Claire Bonnafe (“Parcours d’un voyageur astral”), - Roger Platiel will borrow certain formal elements from his teacher, but also from Henry Moore, Max Ernst and Paul Klee, but as well as transforming them in a completely autonomous language. He creates his own studio in 1962 in Cachan, and also in this year visits France, Germany and Switzerland.
Platiel exhibits several of his works in different French Biennales in the middle of the 60’s. He travels to Asia in 1965, spends a year in Rome where he obtained the Land de Hesse bourse in 1966-1967, then spend 3 years in Africa from 1968-1970. The artist moves back to Paris at the beginning of the 70’s; he participates in numerous collective exhibitions in France and abroad (Germany, England, Israel and Malta); he travels again to, notably to Greece and Italy.
In 1977, Roger Platiel discovers he has a tumor and postpones an exhibition that is scheduled in Frankfort. However he doesn’t stop to work, intensifying his rhythm. He engraves his last printing plate ‘Trace’ in March 1978, passing away 3 months later, in September of the same year. A posthumous exhibition of his recent works was organized in Frankfurt. In 1979, the Staatichen-Kunstsammlungen of Kassel dedicated a retrospective where the entirety of his works were exhibited for the first time.
Roger Platiel dreamed of a future language where our history would be express itself and says - and perhaps live. The engraving that he adopted to the exclusion of all other means of expression offers him this domain, the interior of which he simultaneously paints, because as Claire Bonnafe writes: “The magnificence of color, a dull and radiant vibration brings the uttermost intensity with extreme finesse, forms the central fire of his research that he would not be separated from”.

Artists on display

The art and the artists display: proclamations, galleries, museums, personal or collective exhibitions. On walls or in shop windows, wise or rebels, posters warn, argue, show. Some were specially conceived by an artist for such or such event, other, colder, have only the letter.

Some were created in lithographic technic, most are simple offset reproductions. They are many those who like collecting these rectangles of paper, monochrome or in games of colours, in matt paper or brilliant, with many words or almost dumb.

We are happy also to be able to greet, by this pages, mythical galleries as those of Denise René, Louis Carré, Claude Bernard, Berheim Jeune, Maeght, Pierre Loeb and others.

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Complete work(s)

Complete work(s)
L'oeuvre gravé 1956-1978 », Patrick Bertrand, Les Amis de Roger Platiel, 2015 All the complete works

Bibliographic track and more

To read about the artist :
  • « R. P. - Graphik », cat., Kasseler Kunstverein, Kassel, Allemagne, 1961
  • « Villa Massimo », cat., exposition coll., Villa Massimo, Rome, Italie, 1966
  • « Roger Platiel », cat., Ed. Galleria Milano, Rome, Italie, 1967
  • « Cinque artisti dell'atelier 17 », cat., Ed. Calcografia Nazionale, Rome, 1968
  • « Atelier 17 », cat., Ed. Elvehjem Art Center, Madison, Etats-Unis, 1977
  • « Das druckgraphische Werk », Erich Herzog, Cat., S. K. Kassel, 1979
  • « Roger Platiel », Claire Bonnafé, in Nouvelles de L’Estampe n° 49, 1980
  • « R. P. - Gravures », A. Chatham de Boliva, in Art & Métiers du livre n°161, mai-juin 1990
  • « Roger Platiel », in « Hayter et l'Atelier 17 », Ed. Musée de Gravelines, 1993
  • « R. Platiel : 1934-1978 », Cat., Ed. Cultura de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, 1997
To read from the artist :
  • No books referenced.
Website :
No website dedicated to the artist.

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Art movements

+ ATELIER 17 / 1927-1965 / Anton Prinner, Mauricio Lasansky, Jacques Lipchitz, Mark Rothko, etc.
All art movements

See & discover

Beyond works currently in stock, it seemed to me useful to combine business with pleasure by letting you discover others works by artists in my gallery. These artworks, now sold or removed from our website, have been in our stock in the past.

These pages will undoubtedly make it possible for some of you to associate an image with its title or the other way round, for others it will be a good time to discover more on such and such artist. For the sake of confidentiality – the pieces being no longer available – we won't display neither their numbering or their price. For whatever reason, make sure to visit this amazing art database with to date 6441 online works just for your pleasure! Michelle Champetier

See & discover