At the age of 19, a young Luc Tuymans saw for the very first time the work of El Greco on a visit to the Szépművészeti Múzeum in Budapest – an event that sparked his imagination and prompted him to embark on a journey that would lead him to be one of today’s most influential artists. Almost forty years later, that life-changing experience is recounted and celebrated in The Image Revisited, a publication which acts both as a monograph and a history of art book.

Timed to coincide with an exhibition dedicated to Baroque organized by Tuymans at M HKA in Antwerp in June 2018, this richly illustrated book includes three conversations Tuymans had with art historians Hans Maria De Wolf, Gottfried Boehm and T.J. Clark in museums in Basel, Brussels and Budapest over the course of three years. What emerges, along with a fascinating discussion on the work of artists such as El Greco, Cézanne, Goya, de la Tour, Titian, Courbet, Mantegna, Hopper, Newman and Richter amongst others, is an insight into Tuymans’ own creative process, and how the great art of the past inspired and motivated him.