Verve. An Artistic and Literary Quarterly. Volume 1, Number 1, December 1937

Large quarto (355 × 265 mm), 128 pages with numerous illustrations including original colour lithographs (details below).

Flush-cut card covers (featuring a wrap-around design 'specially composed for "Verve" by Henri Matisse') a little rubbed at the extremities and lightly scuffed, with a short split across the spine extending less than a centimetre into the front and rear sides; stitching slightly loose in places, with the binding pulled a little away from the text block before the first lithograph (which has the small paper label of the contemporary Adelaide bookseller Allan's affixed to the foot of the blank recto); trifling signs of use and age; a very good copy, with the original lithographs in fine condition.

Published in Paris in both French and English editions (with the texts translated by Robert Sage) under the directorship of E. Teriade (an ex-patriate Greek, Efstatios Eleftheriades), 'Verve' was 'devoted to artistic creation in all fields and in all forms'. 'That the illustrations may retain the import of the originals, "Verve" will utilize the technical methods best suited to each reproduction. It will call on the best specialists of heliogravure in colors and in black and white, as well as of typography, and will not disdain to employ the forgotten process of lithography. The luxuriousness of "Verve" will consist in the publication of documents as fully and as perfectly as possible' (manifesto in this first issue). The artistic component includes a suite of four original colour lithographs, 'The Four Elements' (Air, Fire, Earth, Water), by Miro, Rattner, Bores, and Leger, respectively. Photographers represented include Brassai, Cartier, Man Ray, Blumenfeld, and Maar. Literary contributors include Gide, Dos Passos, Garcia Lorca, and Cezanne (hitherto unpublished letters to Zola).

Item #117963

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