Christian Zervos

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Tériade , Pablo Manès, Pablo Gargallo , Christian Zervos, Café du Dôme , Paris, around 1930

Christian Zervos (Gr. Χρήστος Ζερβός, born January 1, 1889 in Argostoli , Kefalonia ; † September 12, 1970 in Paris ) was an art collector, critic and publisher of the art and literary magazine Cahiers d'Art . He was one of the earliest art critics to write about Pablo Picasso and later became his publisher. Zervos compiled the catalog raisonné of Picasso's works , which is now regarded as fundamental and which was published in the Éditions Cahiers d'Art from 1932.

Life

Christian Zervos was born in Argostoli on Kefalonia . His parents later emigrated to Alexandria and from there to Marseille. He studied philosophy at the Sorbonne and began writing for the art magazine L'Art d'aujourd 'hui . In 1919 he received his doctorate from the Sorbonne. In 1926 he founded the art and literary magazine Cahiers d'Art (1926-1960) with Tériade , for which he was able to win, among others, the architect Jean Badovici and his friend Will Grohmann (as a correspondent in Germany). Together with his wife Yvonne Marion, Zervos opened a gallery that was later called May Gallery and was an important institution of French art in the interwar period. It was also just one of two galleries in France that carried works by Wassili Kandinsky .

The Musée Zervos in the former home of Romain Rolland in Vézelay

When the Nazis began to rage against “ degenerate art ” in Germany, Zervos was one of the few who criticized it in public and wrote polemical articles. For the exhibition “Exhibition of 20th Century German Art” in London he printed an article by Grohmann without his consent or knowledge. Grohmann got into trouble and was even arrested on short notice. In 1947, Zervos and Grohmann were reconciled and campaigned intensively for Franco-German cooperation in the cultural sector. He wrote numerous monographs, for example on Henri Rousseau and Frank Lloyd Wright .

In addition to his commitment to modernism, Christian Zervos was interested in Cycladic and prehistoric art as well as Greek architecture. He recommended the architect Dimitris Pikionis to his colleague Alexander Iolas for the construction of a villa.

In 2006, the Musée Zervos opened in the former home of the writer Romain Rolland in Vézelay .

Publications (selection)

Picasso's catalog raisonné by Zervos
  • Michel Psellos . Un philosophe neoplatonicien du XIe siècle . Paris 1920 (Reprint 1974) (= dissertation)
  • Catalog raisonné des œuvres de Pablo Picasso . Paris, éditions Cahiers d'art, 1932–1978
  • The Art of Crete
  • The Art of the Cyclades
  • L'art de l'époque du Renne en France

literature

  • Chara Kolokytha: Formalism and Ideology in 20th century Art: Cahiers d'Art, magazine, gallery, publishing house (1926–1960) . PhD thesis, Northumbria University, 2016.
  • Martin Schieder, Werner Spies, Karl-Otto Götz: In the view of the other: The Franco-German art relations, 1945–1959 . Akademie Verlag, 2005 ISBN 3-05-004148-X (chapter on the friendship Zervos-Grohmann)
  • Index général de la revue Cahiers d'art, 1926-1960 , pref. Dora Vallier, Paris, Ed. Cahiers d'art, 1981.
  • Chara Kolokytha: The Art Press and Visual Culture in Paris during the Great Depression: Cahiers d'Art, Minotaure and Verve in: Visual Resources, An International Journal of Documentation 29, 3, 2013, pp. 184–215.
  • Chara Kolokytha, 'Christian Zervos et Cahiers d'art, Archives de la Bibliothèque Kandinsky' in Konsthistorisk tidskrift / Journal of Art History 82, 4, 2013, pp. 339–342.
  • Jean-Pierre De Rycke, “Christian Zervos et Tériade: deux insulaires grecs à la conquête de l'avant-garde européenne”, Paris - Athènes, 1863-1940, Pinacothèque Nationale et Musée Alexandros Soutzos, Athens 2006.
  • Kim Grant: Cahiers d'Art and the Evolution of Modernist Painting , In: The Journal of Modern Periodical Studies 1, 2, 2010, pp. 216-227.
  • Cahiers d'art, Musée Zervos à Vézelay , sous la direction de Christian Derouet, Paris, Hazan, Perrigny, Conseil général de l'Yonne, DL 2006.
  • Christopher Green, “Zervos, Picasso and Brassaï, ethnographers in the field: a critical collaboration”, in Malcolm Gee (Ed.) Art criticism since 1900 , Manchester, Dist. by St. Martin's, 1993.
  • Valery Dupont, Le discours anthropologique dans l'art des années 1920-1930 en France, à travers l'exemple des Cahiers d'art , dissertation, 1999, Art et Archeology, Université de Dijon.

Web links

Commons : Christian Zervos  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Musée Zervos
personal data
SURNAME Zervos, Christian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Art collector, critic and publisher
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Argostoli
DATE OF DEATH September 12, 1970
Place of death Paris