While acknowledging the Belgian artist's involvement in the Cobra movement, this non-traditional retrospective catalogue features Pierre Alechinsky's mature style and his preoccupation with what he refers to as "marginal work." This intriguing look into Alechinsky's progression of a particular form includes an engaging interview with the artist conducted by Michael Gibson, over one hundred color and black-and-white images, a bibliography, and a selected exhibition history. The catalogue opens with the poem "Central Park" by Octavio Paz, as a compliment to Alechinsky's painting of the same name.

Beyond the frame there is . . . well, all the rest! The roving hordes, the outside world, so powerful when you compare it to a small rectangle of paper or canvas. I sense then how urgent it is, not only to concentrate on the composition of the rectangle itself, but also on that of its frontiers on the margins. Progressively, as I produced my paintings with margins (I have been painting such works episodically, ever since I did Central Park in 1965), I found myself stressing the rectangle, underscoring it even, whether by means of a fringe of pictures around the center, or by materializing a border.