CAHIERS D'ART
ANNE 1937 ISSUE 1-3
Songe et Mensonge de Franco by Pablo Picasso

9.75 x 12.5 perfect-bound magazine with 104 pages printed on a variety of coated and uncoated paper stocks. The historic value of this particular issue cannot be overstated.

Of paramount importance is the 14 page section entitled Songe et Mensonge de Franco [The Dream and Lie of Franco] by Pablo Picasso: Fourteen gravures by Picasso. Included are the 1st stage engravings from 8-9th of January 1937 on thick dark paper sheets. Each gravure has a format of 12 x 18 centimeters with white ink printed as background.The 2nd stage on May 25th on same size paper was the same art with enhanced aquatint. On June 7th 1937 four images were added making 9 on each sheet with a total of 18. This third stage is reproduced in the journal. These images were also printed as postcards and sold for the benefit as yet unfallen Spanish government.

According to the Print Department at Wake Forest University: "The 1931 Spanish Civil War had a tremendous impact on Picasso and his work. Ideologically, Picasso supported the Republicans (those promoting democracy and new growth). They were opposed by the Nationalists, who represented the interests of the former monarchists, and certain left wing extremists (fascists), in particular, General Franco. On January 8 and 9 of 1937, Picasso created the print series titled Dream and Lie of Franco, I. Two plates were involved, each containing nine rectangular scenes in etching and aquatint. Fourteen of the scenes deal with the expression of hatred and contempt for El Caudillo (Franco). The remaining four images were added on June 7 of that year and depict scenes from Picasso¹s painting, Guernica."

"The prints read like a traditional woodcut story or like one of the American comic strips Picasso so admired. On the uncut sheets, the images read right to left, resulting from the reversal in the printing process.Originally, the sheets were intended to be sold whole and accompanied by an odd stream of consciousness poem written by Picasso himself. Eschewing any rules of syntax or grammar, the poem was designed to ridicule Franco, the "loathsome, barely human, hairy slug." The idea of distributing the three together was abandoned in favor of cutting the eighteen different images and selling them individually as postcards. The profits would go to support the Spanish Republic and those devastated by Franco. In 1939, sets of the postcard prints and the poem were reunited and reissued."

This issue of Cahiers d'Art also includes a full-page b/w portrait of Adrienne Fidelin by Man Ray [La Mode Au Congo]. Also includes b/w artwork by Paul Elaurd, Henri Laurens Fernand Leger, John Storrs, Georges Braque, Joan Miro, Adolph Hitler, and others. An amazing snapshot of the state of modern art in Europe and Paris (circa 1937), before the lights went out.

Christian Zervos (1889 - 1970) was a Picasso scholar and magazine editor. Zervos began writing art articles for the magazine L'Art d'aujourd 'hui, later founding his own journal Cahiers d'art in 1926. The Cahiers featured contributions by scholars and critics alike in a wide range of fields, from prehistoric art to modern and was noted for its layout and presentation as much as its content. Zervos married Yvonne Marion [Zervos] (1905-70) who ran an art gallery next to her husband's shop. During this same time Christian Zervos issued an eclectic variety of monographs, including ones on Henri Rousseau, Greek Art and Frank Lloyd Wright before settling upon his life's work, a catalogue raisonné of Pablo Picasso. Begun in 1932, catalog was completed in 33 volumes after Zervos' death in 97 volumes. World War II interrupted many of Zervos' publishing projects, including the Cahiers, which suspended 1941-43, resuming in 1944 to last until the end of his life. His wife's shop, moved to larger premises in 1939 and renamed the May Gallery, exhibited many of the major French artists active between the wars.

Price: $1250.00
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