Glenn Gould biography in comics by Sandrine Revel wins Prix Artémisia

Sandrine Revel, a Bordeaux-based illustrator and painter, spent three years creating a delicate graphic biography of Canadian pianist Glenn Gould (1932-1982). Originally published in France by Dargaud, the book won the prestigious Prix Artémisia 2016, awarded by an all-female jury to a female cartoonist in homage to Artemisia Gentileschi. The Italian edition, titled "Glenn Gould. Una vita fuori tempo," is now available in a hardcover version from Bao Publishing. Revel's watercolor illustrations, with low tones and brighter contour lines, capture Gould's introverted genius and his preference for gray skies. The biography covers Gould's prodigious debut at age thirteen with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra at Massey Hall, his abandonment of public performances for studio recordings, his hypochondria and obsessions, and his revolutionary piano technique—sitting low on his famous pigmy chair and playing his Steinway CD 318 with clavichord-like precision. Gould reinterpreted Bach, Beethoven, Sibelius, and Schönberg, earning praise from Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland. The book also explores Gould's eccentricities: his love for animals named after composers, his humming while playing, his disdain for jazz and country, and his passion for Barbra Streisand and Petula Clark. Revel employs complex narrative techniques, including varied page architecture and differentiated panel framing to indicate present, past, future, and hypothetical timelines.