Artists in Exile

CHAGALL, MARC; MONDRIAN, PIET; ERNST, MAX; LÉGER, FERNAND; BRETON, ANDRÉ; et al.

Verlag: Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, 1942

CATALOG FOR THE LANDMARK ARTISTS IN EXILE EXHIBITION, SIGNED BY ALL 14 ARTISTS, INCLUDING ANDRÉ BRETON, MARC CHAGALL, MAX ERNST, AND PIET MONDRIAN. On March 3, 1942, an historic exhibition of fourteen émigré artists opened at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York City. Pierre Matisse, distinguished modern art dealer, gallery owner, and son of Henri Matisse, exhibited some of the greatest European and American artists of the twentieth century, many for the first time. This special exhibit, appropriately titled Artists In Exile, represented cutting edge European avant-garde art and featured a single work from each artist, created after their arrival in the United States. We have on offer a rare Artists in Exile exhibition catalog which features a group photo by George Platt Lynes and the signatures of all 14 of the artists in colored inks: Eugene Berman, André Breton, Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Fernand Leger, Jacques Lipchitz, André Masson, Roberto Matta, Piet Mondrian, Amdeé Ozenfant, Kurt Seligmann, Yves Tanguy, Pavel Tchelitchew, and Ossip Zadkine. There are only a handful of signed copies, each one uniqueã…¡the artists used different colored pens and placed their signatures in different locations. Artists in Exile highlighted the growing presence of modern artists in New York, who despite their differences in style, generation, and nationality, joined together to showcase their art. Pierre Matisse, for his part, created a welcoming gallery environment. Despite American political rhetoric which celebrated democratic freedom, America in the 1930s and 1940s was economically, socially, politically and culturally isolated and not a welcome refuge for the huddled masses. In contrast, the Pierre Matisse Gallery served as a creative gathering space for these new arrivals who energized the American art world. Each of these artists worked in modern styles which had been denounced and destroyed by the Nazis and labeled Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) in the 1930s. After the fall of France in 1940 these artists fled Europe, many of them were Jewish. The artists featured in this exhibit had successfully escaped Nazi, fascist and totalitarian regimes, some with the help of the Emergency Rescue Committee (ERC) in Marseille. From 1940-1941 American journalist Varian Fry, of the ERC, worked with art dealers like Pierre Matisse, collectors like Peggy Guggenheim, and museum directors like Alfred H. Barr Jr. (first director of the Museum of Modern Art) to rescue European artists in the greatest danger of Nazi persecution. The ERC helped at least 1,500 refugees escape from France and provided aid to over 2,000 others. Many artists who escaped because of the ERC's efforts arrived in New York City, the American art capital. The early 1940s was a turbulent time with so many of Europe's most prominent modern artists relocating to America. Many of the exiled artists helped to reshape the American art world. Max Ernst, for example, showed Jackson Pollock how to drip paint onto a flat canvas. The Artists in Exile exhibition, therefore, was a celebration of the talent and contributions of these fourteen artists who were introduced to the New York art scene by Pierre Matisse, a leading modern arts enthusiast. George Platt Lynes, a well-known commercial and fashion photographer of this period, had the difficult task of herding egos for the Artists in Exile exhibition group photograph. While the public viewed this show as a symbol of artistic unity, creating that illusion was a testament to Platt Lynes and to Pierre Matisse's commitment to showcasing these accomplished artists. Matisse admitted "I get all these people in the studio for the Artists in Exile show and while the photographer (Platt Lynes) fixed his camera, all these people who hated each other were walking around trying not to greet one another. Breton didn't like Modrian, Leger didn't like Chagall, Chagall and Ernst didn't like each other. They all wound up in the picture next to the one they. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 2783

Bibliografische Details

Titel: Artists in Exile
Verlag: Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York
Erscheinungsdatum: 1942
Zustand: Very Good
Signiert: Signatur des Verfassers
Auflage: First edition.