Christophe Verfaille (1953-2011) attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Amiens and Paris in 1970-1972 and pursued his artistic formation as a pupil of the print-maker François Leyriz in Paris (1972-76), with whom he also collaborated for radio and TV broadcasts. From 1976 until his death, he gave art classes in various hospitals and non-profit organizations. From 1978 to 1985, he also taught drawing and semiology of art in a Paris high school. Christophe Verfaille was a solitary character, and his technique very slow - each of his paintings on wood, made of innumerable layers of paint that were periodically sanded down, took him years to complete.

Yve-Alain Bois is Professor Emeritus in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He has written extensively on 20th century art, from Matisse, Picasso, and Mondrian to post-war European and American art. He has curated or co-curated several exhibitions, notably of the artists just mentioned as well as "L'informe, mode d'emploi" with Rosalind Krauss at the Centre Pompidou and "Ellsworth Kelly: Early Drawings" at the Fogg Art Museum. He is one of the editors of the journal October and a contributing editor of Artforum. Among other projects, he is currently working on the catalogue raisonné of Ellsworth Kelly's paintings and sculpture.

This is Galerie Buchholz' second exhibition of Christophe Verfaille. On the occasion of the first gallery exhibition in Cologne, we produced the catalogue, "Yves-Alain Bois: Christophe Verfaille" (Cologne 2014). Yves-Alain Bois republished his essay from this catalogue in his recent book, "An Oblique Autobiography" (No Place Press, New York/San Francisco 2022).

Press release courtesy Galerie Buchholz.