Dead Skull - Artist's Book

Luc Tuymans

Dead Skull has been published on the occasion of the inauguration on May 17th, 2010 of a 40-square-metre stone mosaic by Luc Tuymans, located in front of the MAS (Museum aan de Stroom), the newly built archaeology and history museum of the City of Antwerp. The image picked by Luc Tuymans for the immense mosaic square is that of his own 2002 painting Dead Skull, now at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. This Tuymans work points to the history of the city of Antwerp, by using as its source image a commemorative 17th-century stone plate - affixed to the facade of the Antwerp Cathedral - in memory of Quentin Metsys (1466-1530), an Early Renaissance painter and “founder” of the Antwerp School of Painting.
The Dead Skull edition contains a screenprint on Velin BFK Rives 250 g paper and a hardbound book (40 × 40 cm, 220 pages, printed in duotone) with an introductory essay by Kate Mayne and a detailed manual of the actual mosaic. The book has been designed and produced solely for this edition and is not for sale in the trade. The boxed edition is limited to 60 copies, all numbered and signed by Luc Tuymans.

€

1.700

Edition Sold

Boxed edition with a screenprint on Velin BFK Rives 250 g and a hardcover book with an introductory essay by Kate Mayne
Screenprint. Size sheet: 40 × 40 cm; size image: 17 × 17 cm. Printed by Vandaele Editie, Antwerp.
Book. Size: 40 × 40 cm. Interior: 220 pages. Printing: pp. 1-16: 6/0 colors (4c process + 2 PMS); pp. 17-220: 2/0 colors (2 PMS). Endpapers: 2 × 4 pages. Text stock + endpapers: Ditto 190 g. Cover: 1/0 color (1 PMS). Binding: Smyth-sewn, 3 mm boards overdrawn with Wibalin 120 g, square. Printed by Godefroit-Gazelle, Antwerp. Bound by Delabie, Kortrijk.
Edition of 60 + 12 AP
Published in 2010

Luc Tuymans

Luc Tuymans is considered one of today’s most influential painters, assuring painting’s enduring legacy by invigorating the medium for a modern context. Born in 1958 in Antwerp, where he lives and works, Tuymans is steeped in the great tradition of Northern European history painting, as well as a modern culture informed by photography, television, and cinema. This is evident in his canvases, where traditional painting collides with contemporary visual strategies, resulting in compositions that adopt technological methods, such as cropping, sequencing, or the close-up, to introduce new perspectives on painting and culture. His seemingly innocuous pictures are often grounded in previously existing imagery drawn from photographs, found images, film stills, and other contemporary visual artifacts.