Skip to main content
A composition of figures and hands in various positions.
Chaos
A composition of figures and hands in various positions.
A composition of figures and hands in various positions.
Chaos, Erik Desmazières, 1988, etching on Arches paper, Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, © 2024 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris.

Chaos

Artist (French, born 1948)
Date1988
Mediumetching on Arches paper
DimensionsImage: 19 1/2 × 25 7/16 inches (49.5 × 64.6 cm)
Plate: 19 1/2 × 25 7/16 inches (49.5 × 64.6 cm)
Sheet: 22 1/4 × 29 15/16 inches (56.5 × 76 cm)
Matted: 25 1/2 × 32 13/16 inches (64.8 × 83.3 cm)
MarkingsWatermark on the bottom left corner of the sheet: [Star] / “CM[F]” in an oval
Credit LineGift of Joseph Browns.
Object number2018.14.7
On View
Not on view
Copyright© 2024 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. The images and text contained on this page are owned by Telfair Museums or used by the Museum with permission from the owners. Unauthorized reproduction, transmission or display of these materials is prohibited with the exception of items deemed “fair use” as defined by U.S. and international copyright laws.Label TextSince he first picked up an etching needle nearly 50 years ago, French artist Erik Desmazières has produced a body of work remarkable for its sheer technical brilliance and unrelenting originality. Desmazières’ etchings may invite comparison to old masters such as Giovanni Battista Piranesi (Italian, 1720–1778) and Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606–1669), but his work never comes across as derivative. On the contrary, each detailed composition provides a glimpse into the artist’s inventive mind. These prints reveal Desmazières’ abiding interest in architecture—in which he briefly considered making a career—as many of these works depict the actual interiors, edifices, and cityscapes that compose the artist’s world or purely fictional constructions from his extraordinary imagination. The son of a French diplomat, Desmazières was born in Rabat, Morocco, in 1948. His youth was spent in Morocco, France, and Portugal. At age 18, he moved to Paris to study political science at the elite Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris and has called the city his home ever since. Desmazières’ work has been the subject of more than 60 solo gallery shows throughout Europe, the United States, and Japan. Telfair Museums hosted an exhibition of his work entitled Constructs and Inventions in 2009, his first solo museum show in the United States.
An aerial view of a cavern with a circular viewing platform with figures walking and on horseba…
Erik Desmazières
1982
A steam liner anchored just off-shore in a land shaped by towering rock formations with a line …
Erik Desmazières
1975
A plaza under construction with scaffolding in the center.
Erik Desmazières
1979
A plaza under construction with intersecting scaffolding at night.
Erik Desmazières
1982
A rocky landscape with pillar-like rock formations with buildings carved from the rock on top. …
Erik Desmazières
1984
Entangled branches covered in moss with the roots perched above the swamp water.
Erik Desmazières
1984
A cityscape that disappears into the horizon with the buildings curling around a hill on the ri…
Erik Desmazières
1990
An aerial view of a city with several towers and spires mimicking the pillar and plateau rock f…
Erik Desmazières
1999
A printed composition of geometric shapes created by intersecting blue lines containing blue, r…
Roy Lichtenstein
1987
A primarily black and white print of a contorted female face next to a table with fruit and a p…
Roy Lichtenstein
1973
A woman wearing a yellow dress lays on a bed and cups one of her breasts. A snake is shown besi…
Alison Saar
1994