AB-63A-1963-001 — The Petrified Forest (1963)

Technical information

Title: The Petrified Forest
Date: 1963
Technique: Oil on paper
Dimensions: 65 × 50 cm
Location: Location: Unknown

Biographical / historical context

The year 1963 marks a shift in Breuillaud’s work: the translucent, embryonic research of segment 62A gives way to more compact, mineralised forms in which the organic merges with rock and stratification.

The Petrified Forest stands at the heart of this mutation. The motif is no longer a membrane bathed in light, but a fossilised mass traversed by cavities and internal ruptures—considered significant enough to be included in the Pillement Catalogue (1967).

Formal / stylistic description

The composition is dominated by a central block with irregular contours, like a slab torn from a blackened ground. Within this mass, broad light reserves form rounded pockets gathered in a cluster, evoking both exposed strata and internal chambers of an organism.

Around these white areas, the dark matter densifies into charcoal-like zones threaded with fissures and veins. Transitions are worked through rubbings and granulations, producing a rough, eroded surface.

The cavities seem to open onto an opaque depth: the sheet sets up a cutaway space, as if one were looking inside a vegetal formation turned to stone.

Comparative analysis / related works

The work extends the fossil vein already perceptible in certain 1962 pieces such as Wasteland World and Fossil Dream, but pushes the logic further: here fragmentation is no longer a detail—it organises the entire architecture.

Within the 1963 corpus, it dialogues with other mineralised organisms of segment 63A, where form is built through cavities, partitions and dark networks.

Compared with sheets where the image shifts toward the appearance of a face, The Petrified Forest maintains a primarily geological reading, while preserving Breuillaud’s essential ambiguity between anatomical vestige and inner landscape.

Justification of dating and attribution

The 1963 dating is supported by the compactness of masses, the strong polarity between light reserves and dark fields, and the presence of an assertive internal network absent from the more liquid compositions of 1962.

The 65 × 50 cm format and the execution in oil on paper also correspond to the experiments of very early 1963 in this segment.

A “63” inscription visible on the reproduction, as well as the mention in the Pillement Catalogue (1967), further supports the chronological attribution. The manner of making the image emerge through rubbings, scratches and erasure while maintaining a continuous organic outline is fully consistent with Breuillaud’s 63A phase.

Provenance / exhibitions / publications

Referenced in the Pillement Catalogue (1967).