Phillipe Bertho

Femme Sous Emprise (Woman Under Pressure), #104/185, 2005

Hand-signed serigraph on gesso, 27 × 45 in.

Image Rights: Martin Lawrence Galleries

Reserve: $1,800 | Estimated Value (Current): $2,000-$3,500

Martin Lawrence Galleries. Valued in 2008 at $1,000-$2,000.

About the artist: Philippe Bertho is classically trained at an art school in Reims, France in the early 1990s. There, he spent considerable time studying trompe l’oeil painting (“to fool the eye”) is a technique used by artists to create the illusion of a 3rd dimension on a flat surface. 

Bertho’s artwork garnered accolades at the Regards sur les Arts salon show in 1995, at which time he was well on his way to developing his own unique style of trompe l’oeil painting. The style that he developed cast a new look on everyday objects, transporting the viewer into an imaginative and rich world.