‘Michel Ciry was born in 1919 at La Baule, France and completed his studies at the school of graphic arts in Paris. He encountered painting rather late after working for many years in the field of graphics and only completely attained a style of his own during the 60’s. Fundamental to his change of technique and style is the execution of an extraordinary etching of the face of Christ (1949), his friendship with some of the major exponents of French Catho-lic culture of his time, from Mauriac to Bernanos, a number of trips made to Italy (Assisi, Rome, Venice) the accounts of which fill a “Journal” in 12 volumes part of which published in Italy and rich in insight and clear considerations on contemporary culture and its protagonists. Since 1964, Michel Ciry has lived and worked in Normandy. His art is distinguished by an obstinate, patient search for perfection seen as a search for the infinite that can only be reached through artistic ascension. Considered in this way, work takes on the guise of a “job”. The artist refuses to be seen purely as an intellectual, but like Rouault and the expressionists he dedicates himself to graphic techniques which preserve a specific “craftsmanship”. The thirty etchings on show clearly indicate a will to exploit to the very fullest the infinite possibilities of the material through a patient and tenacious effort made up of successive and gradual changes that in some form nine or ten layers. Done between 1960 and 1983, they are often an association of aquatint and etching and reveal an extraordinary command of the artist’s expressive means. The works of Ciry are not “sacred” but “religious”, they suggest the transcendent. The seriousness of the figures and faces of Ciry reflects the wonder of the believer: absorbed, unpredictable, absolute. “My figures are tired, weary, never desperate. I try to express the conflict of the individual in modern society”, says the artist.’