Page 60 - Studio International - September 1965

New books

more important works, some in detail and Gaudier-Brzeska: Drawings and
from different views, and there are smaller sculpture
reproductions alongside the catalogue Introduction by Mervyn Levy. 11 by 10 in.
entries. There are short texts by Sir 84 pp. (London: Cory, Adams & Mackay.)
Herbert Read and the Editor, a biographical 63s.
summary, lists of exhibitions and of the Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, born in France is
public collections which own works by the almost unknown there. He studied. worked
sculptor and a short bibliography. Chief and lived in England and exhibited with the
interest in the book is in the photographs Vorticists but died in an infantry charge in
of the work, which were taken either by 1915 while fighting in the French Army.
Henry Moore or under his direct super­ In this book are reproduced 84 mono­
vision. This intimate concern of the artist chrome plates and four in colour which
has meant that those aspects of sculpure give some idea of the range of his talent.
that read most significantly are empha­ He was an intense draughtsman-his self­
sized, rather than the dramatic and stylish portrait lighting a cigarette has all the
effects often given by photographers at the electric energy of a lightning flash. His
expense of the value of the work. pastel portrait of Horace Brodzky, who in
We see from the middle of the sixth his eighties still paints and is to be seen at
decade of his life, Henry Moore reach a private views today, has in its vivid colour
maturity in a way that expresses the monu­ planes a personal conception allied to
mentality of natural form without straining cubism. His bronze bust of the same sitter
for stylistic individuality. In the Upright in the Bristol City Art Gallery is a plastic
Figure 1956-60, for example, we sense as extrusion of the pastel in exuberant life.
· much as see the tension in the articulated His carvings such as The red stone dancer
limbs and in the classic Reclining Figure, in the Tate are typical of the dynamic
that is the one great artistic work at the force that was inherent in all he created.
Unesco Building in Paris, the relationship Mervyn Levy's text illuminates Gaudier's
Honore Daumier Doctors and medicine in the
Esculape se mettant en garde . of the figure to the mass of the marble of achievements in the light of their con­
From 'Doctors and medicine in the works of Daumier which it is part and yet not completely tribution to the modern movement and in
works of Daumier'. Notes and catalogue by Jean Adhemar. the whole makes a metaphor from the this he is assisted greatly by some of the
Preface by Arthur W. Heintzelman. 136 pp.
12¾ by 10 in. (London: Peter Owen Ltd.) material and the image that was paradoxic­ artist's own writings.
ally enough only achieved by Michelangelo
90s. in an unfinished carving. In Three piece Frank Kupka
This selection of 48 excellently reproduced reclining Figure No. 2: Bridge prop of 1963 By Jean Cassou and Denise Fedit.
lithographs by Honore Daumier isolates the process of ultimate extraction goes on. 8 by Bi in. 17 pp. text. 18 colour plates and
the French artist's incomparable graphic 12 monochrome plates. (London: Thames
wit on the subject of the medical profession & Hudson.) 3 0 s.
with. of course, the political paraphrases Van Gogh Self-portraits This first publication on the Czech master,
that are endless in the hands of the car­ By Fritz Erpel. With a preface by Dr. H. who spent all his creative life in Paris, is
toonist. The drawings range from the Gerson. 1 Of by B½ in. 15 6 pp. (London: important as an introduction to the work
cheap joke to the beautifully subtle Faber & Faber for Bruno Cassirer, Oxford.) of one of the initiators of abstract art and as
Le Malade, with its touch of tenderness in 50s. a first sketch of a personality both cerebral,
the otherwise Brueghelesque realism of the Although a very revealing exhibition of charming and reticent. Kupka has waited
seated peasant. The introduction by Jean self-portraits by Vincent van Gogh was for his recognition as Jacques Villon and
Adhemar considers Daumier in the context held at the Marlborough Fine Arts Ltd. in Bonnard had waited before him. The
of his time with his own attitudes towards London a few years ago, this is the first recognition of what 7
the medical profession defined as distrust­ book to be devoted to the fascinating Born out of Art Nouveau his was a
ful though he has little sympathy with subject. Altogether forty-three paintings step so tremendous in re-assessing the
patients either. Daumier himself was and drawings by the famous Dutch artist basic tenets of form and expression that he
blessed with good health for most of his are reproduced in the plates, twelve in full can be considered a phenomenon.
life so his ferocity had little to do with per­ colour; they range in date from late in The two texts of this book which was
sonal feelings rather than the demands of a 1885 when a portrait much damaged by produced in Germany by Verlag Gerd
publisher who found the profession worthy fire shows the artist standing before an Hatje in Stuttgart (therefore its strange
of attack. The differences in the styles easel with his palette in his hand to the last shape and layout) were translated by
throughout the plates are typical of the year of his ill-fated life at Saint-Remy and Robert Erich Wolf from the French. Who
artist's development ranging from the Auvers 1889-90. The background of the translated it into English and whether from
single monolithic figure of Mr. Prune of latter painting shows the swirling serpen­ the original French or the German trans­
1833 to a sardonically elegant Reception tine strokes of paint that were to distin­ lation remains a secret of the publisher.
academique of 1868 showing two Acade­ guish also the landscapes of this last Kupka as an illustrator was not as prolific
micians showering each other with herbs. tortured period that preceded his suicidal nor as well known in his own time as his
death. The preface covers the familiar contemporary and compatriot Mucha. He
Henry Moore ground of Van Gogh's life but Fritz Erpel in was rather academic, dry, in fact, with no
Volume 3. Sculpture 1955-64. Edited by his text relates the self-portraits to the outstanding talent. Kubin was a genius
Alan Bowness. With an introduction by known facts of his biography. Notes on compared with him. The Art Nouveau
HerbertRead.11 ¾by10 in. 3 2 pp and177 the plates cite letters and critical opinion trend reaches deep into his abstraction. Is
plates. (London: Lund Humphries and regarding their originals' probable dates the root of abstractionism the lack of
Zwemmer) £4 10s. and an accompanying account of van human emotion and the emptiness of an
As a measure of Henry Moore·s inter­ Gogh's appearance as it seemed to his con­ intentional artificiality? J. P. HODIN
national fame and his quality as a world temporaries is full of interest. Illustrations
master, the publishers have produced in the text show some of the other famous Csontvary
three definitive works on his output of works by van Gogh and also photographs By Lajos Nemeth.
sculpture, cataloguing each piece. The and portraits of him by his colleagues who This book. published by Corvina Press and
latest volume covers the period from 1955 included Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, and distributed by Kultura, P.O.B. 149, Buda­
to 1964 when 151 sculptures were pro­ by John P. Russell, recently seen at the pest, 62, Hungary. reviewed in the May
duced. 177 large plates illustrate the Wildenstein Gallery in London. issue, is obtainable for £3 12s ( 9.20).
134