Cubism Bindings (1 results)

FIRST EDITION. PRESENTATION COPY. 240 x 185 mm. (9 1/2 x 7 1/2"). 44 pp., [2] leaves. STRIKING 3-D OPTICAL ILLUSION BINDING BY A. CONTRERAS (stamp-signed on front turn-in), WITH AN ALL-OVER DESIGN OF CUBES rendered in black, white, and silver morocco, smooth spine. In older (probably original) brown woodgrain drop-back box backed with black buckram. With 26 black & white photographic reproductions of works by Cézanne, Picasso, Derain, Braque, Metzinger, Laurencin, Gleizes, Léger, Duchamp, Picabia, and original owner Juan Gris, printed on glossy white paper. WITH A HALF TITLE INSCRIPTION (in French) OF GREAT IMPORTANCE FROM ONE OF THE CO-AUTHORS (translated as): "To the painter Juan Gris, with all my best wishes, Metzinger." Occasional underlinings in blue pencil. Text leaves with overall light browning and occasional foxing (due to paper stock), lower corner of half title restored (and fore edge with minor chipping), otherwise a fine copy, the plates clean and bright and the binding unworn. Penned by two Cubist artists, this is a highly resonant association copy of the first major treatise on the Cubism movement, presented to noted Cubist painter Juan Gris, and later put into an illusionistic binding composed of variably colored cubes that seem to jump off the surface. Albert Gleizes (1881-1953) and Jean Metzinger (1883-1956) had painted in both Post-Impressionist and Fauvist styles before their interest in exploring form and structure as well as light and color led them to the style that would become Cubism. Influenced by Cézanne's "brick-by-brick" technique and Poincaré's writings on space and time, the new movement sought to examine objects from a mobile perspective, and to depict multiple views of a subject in one painting. In "On Cubism," they explain: "An object has not one absolute form; it has many. It has as many as there are planes in the region of perception." The work features black & white illustrations of Cubist paintings by the authors and by fellow pioneers Picasso, Braque, Derain, and Juan Gris, to whom this copy was presented by Metzinger. Born in Madrid as José Victoriano González-Pérez (1887-1927), Gris studied engineering before moving to Paris to pursue art. First working as an illustrator for periodicals, he was inspired by Metzinger to begin painting seriously. His training in engineering helped him appreciate the importance of mathematics in painting, a realization triggered, according to art historian John Richardson, by Metzinger's painting "Le Goûter [Tea Time]," exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in 1911. Our volume was later in the collection of, and probably bound for, Chilean architect and collector Carlos Alberto Cruz (1939-2022). We have been unable to find more information on our binder, "A. Contreras," but it seems possible that he was also Chilean, as the Valparaiso-based Cruz owned a number of bindings signed with that name.