“Sometimes forms (usually figurative) push their way to our eyes as if carved out from the dense ground. Other times a thin line of white describes a surface pattern that just might resolve into a suggestive image. In these works the observation/stylization balance reverses, but the artist’s means are just as economical. He reveals enough clues for our observing eyes to recognize a stylized shape as a profile or a figure in motion.”
—Ann Bremner in the exhibition publication for Paul-Henri Bourguignon: A Retrospective, 1906–1988 The Schumacher Gallery, Capital University, Columbus, Ohio, 1989