Drawing

An inclination to draw first appeared in Louis Stettner’s earliest journals: linear shapes taking the form of faces began to appear in corners or margins of pages, eventually  over time, a practice that transformed itself into an art form in its own right. As in his photographs, he liked close-up framing and chose the human figure as a main subject. In the drawings, characters are most often naked and seen from the front. The sinuous lines drawn in pencil or charcoal with a lively and assertive gesture are integrated, from 1990 on, in his photographic collages – in the spirit of the Cobra movement. At the end of his life, Louis Stettner practiced drawing more and more, tirelessly seeking to capture what is universal in us as an inexhaustible flow of vital energy.