Pierre Restany, “Sorel Etrog”, New York, 2001, page 41, page 120 for illustration of “Piéton”
William J. Withrow, Introduction to “Sorel Etrog”, Toronto, 1967
The “Hinge” period of Sorel Etrog’s practice from 1972-79 is one of the most transformative stages in the artist’s career. Remarking on the preliminary inspiration for incorporating hinges into his work, Etrog explains: “On a vacation in Israel, visiting my family, I picked up a child’s drawing pad and began to draw doodles of flat and organic surfaces connected by hinges. At first, new ideas feel like illegitimate children of the brain. The hinge started to obsess me and so I adopted it.” Of this period, two camps of work were produced: the Introverts and the Extrovert. “Piéton Study” falls into the category of Extravert where these works are “concerned with open space and implied movement” and were the first iterations by Etrog to create the walking figures he is most celebrated for.
