Atelier Mutel

About

La Pierre Rosette

SAVE THE DATE: Tues., April 9, 2024: event registration here
The Rosetta Stone :
An ancient key: history & a new translation

A talk by Didier Mutel
at the Grolier Club, NYC

Didier Mutel will speak in connection with "Language, Decipherment, and Translation", the Grolier Club's exhibition, curated by Grolier Club member Deirdre Lawrence, featuring work from her personal collection, including Didier's Rosetta Stone. 
Grolier Club members may register via the Club calendar

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DIDIER MUTEL has been producing artists’ books and engravings since 1989. Born in 1971, he entered the Ecole Estienne at 15, then studied at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, and continued his studies at the l’Atelier National de Création Typographique à l’Imprimerie Nationale. From 1997 to 1999, Didier Mutel was in residence at the Villa Medici in Rome where he produced two collaborative books. In 2008, the Atelier Georges Leblanc closed, and Pierre Lallier transfered a significant portion of the historical equipment to Didier Mutel. In 2009, Didier Mutel purchased a space in Orchamps in the Jura, where he reinstalled the workshop. Since 2003 Mutel has been teaching at the Institut Supérieur des Beaux Arts of Besançon and is regularly invited by American universities for presentations and special courses. In 2013 Didier Mutel received the prestigious title of Maître d’art. Most recently, he was awarded the Prix Liliane Bettencourt pour l’Intelligence de la Main, a juried prize for “exceptional talent” that recognized his recent book, R217A (2016), as a work “resulting from a perfect mastery of techniques and savoir-faire of artistic craft” as well as demonstrating “innovation, and contributing to the evolution of this knowledge.” His most recent work includes La Pierre Rosette [The Rosetta Stone] (2015), the monumental The First Atlas of The United States Of Acid (2017), Sidereus Nuncius (2018), Melencholia (2021), The True Tales of Captain Acid (2022), and the ongoing series, The Birds of Acid (2019-).

ATELIER MUTEL traces its roots to 1793, making it is the oldest etching studio in France. From a historical and artistic point of view the studio represents centuries of knowledge and a very high level of handcraft production. The studio is well recognized in France and abroad for its highly specialized productions, which combine traditional techniques and contemporary innovations. Didier Mutel apprenticed to the studio in 1988, joining there his master Pierre Lallier who ran it from 1968 to 2008. The studio moved from Paris to the Jura and after 5 years of renovation its grand opening took place in 2014.

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See Didier's recent talk at the Library of Congress: click here


Available Items

Image from prospectus 7 seas of capt acid -- anglais, page 6.jpg

7 SEAS OF CAPT ACID

Published: 2022

This atlas comprises 48 plates, representing globe gores intended to form a terrestrial globe.
Mutel's defense and celebration of etching
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La Gradiva.

Published: 1999

Illustrated with 21 original large double-page engravings by Didier Mutel, one of 30 copies.
The Rosetta Stone for Mutel’s Poetics of Acid Etching.
One of Mutel's most delicate works, illustrated with abstract anthropomorphic figures reminiscent of the surrealists so admired by Ponge.
Melencholia II, III, IV (2021) by Didier Mutel and Nicolas Bardey, is a collaborative response to Melencholia I (1514), a copperplate engraving by the German artist Albrecht Dürer, which they present here in a series that combines engraving and serigraphy.
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Mummy Mummies.

Published: 1999

Text and original photographs by Alain Fleischer published at the l’Académie de France, Villa Médicis in Rome. Didier Mutel photoengraved and etched the text with acid on copper plates.
My way I plate1

My Way I

Published: 2010

“My Way is the generic title given to the first Acide Brut Action.” -the artist.
new work
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OVERSHOOT DAY

Published: 2022

$7,300, including shipping from France.

Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year. In 2021, it fell on July 29.
R217A reproduces the text of the United Nations Resolution 217A, the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man, made December 10, 1948, which was ratified by the UN General Assembly in Paris by 58 member states.
55 Hand engraved plates by Didier Mutel
Birds-3-Cassatt

The Birds of Acid

Published: 2019-2024

prospectus Birds of Acid-2024 [subscriptions sold out]

The Birds of Acid is a response to John J. Audubon’s extraordinary Birds of America. In this work Didier Mutel reinterprets, in his own way, this monument in the history of engraving and printmaking.
Didier Mutel's homage to John J. Audubon’s extraordinary Birds of America
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The Forbes Simulachres

Published: 2009

$7,300 (including shipping)

A recurring theme in Mutel’s work brings traditional and historical printing technology and motifs into the present moment
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The Hellmap Atlas

Published: 2022

The HELLMAP ATLAS is a geography of Hell inspired by Sandro Botticelli's (circa 1485) drawings for an unrealized edition of Dante's Inferno.
The description of a new Super Hero