The lithographer, painter, and theorist Pierre Alechinsky (Brussels, 1927) studied illustration and typography at the École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture et Arts Décoratifs La Cambre. In 1945, he discovered the work of Michaux, Dubuffet, and the Surrealists, at which time he also formed a friendship with the art critic Jacques Putnam.

Alechinsky began painting in 1947 and, two years later, joined the CoBrA group (an acronym for Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam), an artistic movement founded in Paris characterized by a reaction against the rigidity of the geometric abstraction so prevalent at the time and a preference for spontaneity, as well as a rejection of pre-established theories. Along with Alechinsky, the group included Karel Appel, Christian Dotremont, and Asger Jorn, among others.

After the dissolution of CoBrA in 1951, Pierre Alechinsky moved to Paris, where he experimented with new printmaking techniques at the iconic Atelier 17, a studio run by Stanley William Hayter. There he befriended Giacometti, Bram van Velde, and Victor Brauner, and corresponded with the Kyoto-based calligrapher Shiryu Morita.

In 1954, he held his first solo exhibition at the Nina Dausset Gallery in Paris and met the Chinese painter Wallace Ting, who would prove crucial to the development of his later work. He also became interested in Japanese calligraphy and in bridging the gap between Eastern and Western art. From then on, his style became more tranquil and contemplative.

In 1961, he made his first trip to the United States to attend the Pittsburgh International Exposition. From then on, he began exhibiting regularly at the Lefebre Gallery in New York and the Galerie de France in Paris. A turning point in his artistic career soon arrived: in 1965, he created Central Park , his first acrylic painting, which included “marginal observations,” a frequent characteristic in much of his work. In 1966, André Breton selected this piece for the eleventh and final international exhibition of the Surrealist movement.

The first retrospective of his work took place in 1969 at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. The exhibition later traveled to the Kunstverein Düsseldorf and the Kunsthalle Bremen in Germany. "Alechinsky to Printmaking" was the title of his first exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou.

Alechinsky served as a painting professor at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris between 1983 and 1987. In 1984 he was awarded the Grand Prix National des Arts et des Lettres in Paris and, four years later, he traveled to China, an experience that catalyzed the Flora Danica series of drawings.

Awarded an honorary doctorate by the Free University of Brussels in 1994, Pierre Alechinsky's work has been the subject of retrospective exhibitions in Mexico, France, and Switzerland since 1998. In April 2006, he was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor of France. His work is now part of the world's most important private collections.