Citation: Kolokytha, Chara (2016) Formalism and Ideology in 20th century Art: Cahiers d’Art, magazine, gallery, and publishing house (1926-1960). Doctoral thesis, Northumbria University. This version was downloaded from Northumbria Research Link: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/32310/ Northumbria University has developed Northumbria Research Link (NRL) to enable users to access the University’s research output. Copyright © and moral rights for items on NRL are retained by the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. Single copies of full items can be reproduced, displayed or performed, and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided the authors, title and full bibliographic details are given, as well as a hyperlink and/or URL to the original metadata page. The content must not be changed in any way. Full items must not be sold commercially in any format or medium without formal permission of the copyright holder. The full policy is available online: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/policies.html Formalism and Ideology in 20 th century Art: Cahiers d’Art, magazine, gallery, and publishing house (1926-1960) Chara Kolokytha Ph.D School of Arts and Social Sciences Northumbria University 2016 Declaration I declare that the work contained in this thesis has not been submitted for any other award and that it is all my own work. I also confirm that this work fully acknowledges opinions, ideas and contributions from the work of others. Ethical clearance for the research presented in this thesis is not required. I declare that the Word Count of this Thesis is 84.767 Chara Kolokytha Signature Date 22/08/2016 2 Abstract The thesis examines the activities of Cahiers d’Art as a magazine, gallery and publishing house active in Paris from 1926 to 1960 with special attention, and without particular regards to biography, to the intellectual development of its founder Christian Zervos from his early years in Alexandria at the beginning of the century to his professional establishment in the French capital. Its originality resides in the presentation of a significant corpus of unpublished archival information and the examination of the role that the network centred around Cahiers d’Art played in the institutionalisation of independent art in the first half of the century, the propagation of abstraction through the popularisation of European primitivism which was presented as a direct link to the modern era, and the passage from the Mechanist to the Atomic Age, its effects in the artistic domain and the ideological connotations it encased. The overall analysis focuses on particular transitional phenomena that marked the course of the 20 th century. Particularly, the passage from analysis to synthesis which found diverse expressions in the contemporary artistic discourse since the beginning of the century giving birth to an increased interest in pragmatist approaches to art and architecture, social engagement, and a course towards formal simplification. The thesis observes the way in which the medieval and the primitive past contributed to the consecration of the international School of Paris and the conflicts of interest of their exponents. It furthermore pays close attention to Zervos’ position-taking with regards to these conflicts, his disdain for antiquity, its aftermath in western art, and the way that these positions affected his presentation of Picasso’s work in the voluminous catalogue raisonné of the artist’s work. Finally, it seeks to re-appreciate from the perspective of Cahiers d’Art, a significantly influential network of worldwide reputation, issues associated with the consecration and popularisation of international independent art in France and abroad, as well as the conflicting aspirations for decentralisation in a context dominated by Eurocentric attitudes and the formal and ideological projections of post Wold War Two liberal critique. 3 Acknowledgements The present thesis would have never been completed without the remarkable help of Christian Derouet, whose expertise in Christian Zervos and Cahiers d’Art revitalised scholarly interest in this outstanding enterprise that epitomises the history of twentieth century art. It is true that Christian Derouet has brought together throughout his long and painstaking study of this particular topic an extraordinary amount of data that constitute an archive in its own right and I am infinitely obliged for sharing it with me as well as for facilitating my trip to Vézelay and introducing me to the collections of the Zervos Museum. I am equally grateful to Malcolm Gee who has been very supportive throughout these years and supervised with sizeable attention my steps towards the completion of the project. His remarks on the content of the thesis and the history of 20 th century French art in general were fundamental to my understanding of the particular aspects of French modernism discussed in the thesis. Special thanks go to Ysanne Holt for her encouragement and support for my research initiatives and her enlightening interest in the connections between French and British modernism. I would also like to thank my family for all the support it has shown for my projects throughout these years involved in the academia. I am furthermore significantly thankful to Didier Schulmann for granting me access to the Cahiers d’Art archive and the staff of the Kandinsky library, namely Veronique Borgeaud and Chloe Goualch, for tolerating my long visits to the library and my tenacious and persistent work in the archive. I have no words to thank the late Yves de Fontbrune for giving me permission to study Zervos’ correspondence with Picasso and Laure Collignon chef du service Archives of the Picasso Museum in Paris for her valuable help. My research on Christian Zervos and Cahiers d’Art was indeed the normal outcome of my earlier preoccupation with Tériade and Verve magazine. The two topics are obviously interrelated as is also the case with the archival material examined throughout these years. I am grateful to Northumbria University for supporting with two research grants my research on Zervos and to the Marc de Montalembert Foundation and the INHA in Paris for funding my research on Tériade. I furthermore wish to thank Catherine Charalampidis, Dominique Szymusiak and the staff of the Matisse Museum at the Cateau Cambrésis for facilitating my work in the Tériade archive, Antoine Monaque from the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, Nicolas Chevalier from the Département des manuscrits et du livre ancien of the Bibliothèque Inter- universitaire de la Sorbonne, the staff of the Princeton University library for their excellent collaboration, the staff of the Centre Allemand d’Histoire de l’Art library, and the staff of the GTA Archiv of the ETH Zurich for their prompt response to the requirements of my research. Special thanks to Denise Vernerey for her passionate interest and active involvement in my research initiatives, the staff of the ASFA library and the E.L.I.A. library in Athens for 4 willingly responding to my research needs. The people involved in the completion of this project are many and it is regrettable that most of them will be acknowledged on the basis of their institutional affiliation. Finally I would like to acknowledge the help offered by Meta Maria Valiušaityte and her willingness to furnish me with bibliographical material that I lacked access to, Ioanna Alexandri for her reference to bibliography that I ignored, Francesco Artuso for facilitating my stays in Paris, the staff of the Northumbria University library for their excellent work in arranging my inter-library loans and the help of all those who contributed in a way or another to the progress and completion of my thesis to whom I am sincerely thankful. The thesis includes a considerable amount of unpublished archival material which was decided to be presented in its original form without translation. The appendices do not include the list of the articles published in Cahiers d’Art since a detailed list has been published in the Index General de la revue Cahiers d’Art in 1981 and it is now accessible on-line on the website AGORHA supported by the INHA. 5 List of plates 1. The editorial board of the magazine Γράµµατα , Alexandria, c. 1909 (Zervos is the standing figure on the right), E.L.I.A. Library, Athens. 2. ‘Visions d’Aujourd’hui,’ Cahiers d’Art 5, 1926, p. 114. 3. Interior ensembles by Ozenfant and Le Corbusier, Cahiers d’Art 6, 1926. 4. J. J. P. Oud, Café De Unie façade, Rotterdam, 1925, photograph published in Cahiers d’Art 6, 1926. 5. J. J. P. Oud, Café de Unie , Rotterdam, 1925, Paris, MNAM. 6. A. Ozenfant et Ch.-E. Jeanneret, ‘Sur la Plastique’, L’Esprit Nouveau 1, 1920, p. 45. 7. Gerald Murphy, Boatdeck, on display at the American section, Salon des Indépendants 1924. 8-9. Panels by Léger and Delaunay at the Pavilion of the French Embassy at the 1925 Exhibition. 10. Panel by Henri Laurens, Hall of the French Embassy at the 1925 International Exhibition. 11. Wilhem Lehmbruck, Der Gerstürzte , 1915/1916, Cahiers d’Art 10, 1928, p. 371. 12. Aristide Maillol, Figure , Cahiers d’Art 10, 1928. p. 370. 13. Ernst Barlach, Die gefesselte Hexe , 1926, Cahiers d’Art 4, 1929, p. 142. 14. Henri Laurens, Figure Couchée , 1929, Cahiers d’Art 4, 1929, p. 143. 15. The exhibition at the gallery Bernheim before the arrival of the German works, Cahiers d’Art 10, 1929. 16. The exhibition at the gallery Bernheim after the arrival of the German works, Cahiers d’Art 10, 1929. 17. Jacques Lipchitz, The Couple , 1929, Cahiers d’Art 10, 1929. 18. Alberto Giacometti, Three figures outdoors , 1929, Cahiers d’Art 10, 1929.