From Publishers Weekly
An irresistible cornucopia of images, this oversized album reproduces excerpts from all 38 issues of what one of its backers called "the most beautiful magazine on earth." Verve was launched in 1937 by a Greek ex-law student in Paris, Teriade (whose real name was Efstratios Eleftheriades). Anthonioz, a director of the National Audiovisual Institute of Paris, examines Teriade's pre- Verve collaboration with art publisher Albert Skira, then follows the financially troubled magazine's history through its demise in 1960. Teriade reveled in theme issues: the human figure, war, the Orient, Chagall's illustrated Bible. In so doing, he forced modernism and classical equilibrium into dynamic collisions. Alongside art by Braque, Picasso, Bonnard, Matisse, Kandinsky, Miro, Giacometti, Leger and Masson, we find medieval manuscript illuminations, old Japanese photos, essays by Gide, Camus, Malraux, Henri Michaux, James Joyce, Pierre Reverdy. So much brilliance dazzles.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Dazzling to the eye, the quarterly journal Verve brilliantly documented Modern Art as a lively event in France from 1937 to 1960. Editor Teriade supported the likes of Matisse, Picasso, and Chagall by publishing their work in a journal as sophisticated as America's Esquire and interlarding the art with writings by Camus, Joyce, and the painters themselves. This retrospective volume re-illuminates this bright spot in the history of art publishing, offering hundreds of reproductions of the visual works and generous excerpts from the essays, along with well-conceived commentary by the author, who prepared the catalog accompanying the 1973 Grand Palais exhibit, "Hommage a Teriade." Brilliant color reproduction but badly weak binding. Francisca Goldsmith, Golden Gate Univ. Lib., San Francisco
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
