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Armand RASSENFOSSE

Armand Rassenfosse (1862-1934) was mostly self-taught, but befriended many artists over the years, likely picking up ideas, technical skills, and overall artistic wisdom along the way.  Born in a bourgeois family from Liège in Belgium, Rassefosse was forced to join the family business, a home furnishing store, after completing high school.  But from his late teens onward, the young man spent time drawing and there are traces of early work from around age 20.  Attracted to the work of fellow Belgian artist Félicien Rops, Rassenfosse picked up the rudiments of etchings, which was also a favorite technique of Rops, before meeting his idol in Paris around age 25.  From his late twenties on, he became a professional artist, mostly active as an etcher, illustrator, and painter.  His oeuvre centers around the femme fatale: women who beguile with their sensual appeal.  Rassenfosse depicted women in various states of undress and in all manner of poses.  While some of these depictions tend toward the morbid, unlike his lifelong friend Rops, Rassenfosse shows a clear adulation for the female form, which he depicts with admiration and a keen eye for beauty.  His mixed intaglio technique, using aquatint, etching, drypoint, crayon-manner and soft-ground in varied combinations, is extremely refined.  He is one of the unequivocal masters of grayscale in intaglio, and many of his prints looks like sophisticated pencil drawings.