Artists & Art

Jean Hélion, the French painter who died at eighty-three in 1987, brought together in his copious and essential writing on art the theoretical authority of the intellectual and the fundamental insights of the craftsman in his studio. His writing extended throughout the five decades or more of his career. Soon after the young painter's arrival in Paris from the provinces, he began a literary-art magazine; he wrote polemical articles as a leading avant-garde abstractionist; he wrote about the great tradition of figure painting while still painting abstractions; and he wrote journals, notes on studio practice, pieces about the role of the artist in society, and much more. His prolificacy is made more extraordinary because he wrote in two languages-having lived in the United States for some years, he wrote many of his articles in English for an American and British audience. This volume collects, for the first time, the diverse writings by Hélion that appeared in print originally in English, including "The Abstract Artist in Society," "Poussin, Seurat, and Double Rhythm," "Objects for a Painter," and many more. Double Rhythm is sure to become essential reading for art historians and painters.

This brilliant blend of history, biography, and criticism explores the seminal figures of twentieth-century French art-Matisse, Picasso, Derain, Léger, Dufy, Braque, Giacometti, Balthus, and Hélion-and the vital art world in which they thrived. The ten interlocking essays in this important book include radical new evaluations of Derain, Léger, and Dufy, and penetrating studies of the final works of Picasso and Braque. Paris Without End, Jed Perl's first book, is now celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary and is essential reading for anyone passionate about modern art. Roberta Smith called it "a quiet, cogent tour de force. . . . As one critic's demonstration of what he considers the best in art and the best way to write about it, this book sets a high standard." Hilton Kramer also noted, "Everyone who cares about the art of the twentieth century will find something to disagree with in this book-its many unorthodox judgments are bound to be controversial-but that, in my view, is a mark of the book's importance."

Wolfgang Paalen was a central figure in internationalist surrealist circles in the late 1930s. Artist and intellectual, he was a European whose fascination with archaic cultures led him finally to Mexico, where he founded the influential magazine DYN in 1941. In the bold texts from DYN that make up Form and Sense, we encounter a unique artistic mind and an oracular voice. Paalen's book is an intellectual delight with essays on cubism, surrealism, the universality of forms in architecture, and the relationships that exist between art and science. He weaves together the new ideas and archaic inspirations in twentieth-century painting and sculpture. His nuanced and original considerations of some key figures-Mondrian, Kandinsky, Picasso-marked Paalen in turn as a significant thinker in the world of modern art. This painter's book, illustrated with carefully chosen examples of the art he examines, makes us not only understand but also experience the rich interplay between idea and image that informs the art of our own time. A new introduction by the scholar Martica Sawin examines Paalen's career, particularly his influential writing on surrealism and abstraction.