Five primitive masters PDF
Preview Five primitive masters
Five Primitive Masters Wilhelm Uhde Ralph Thompson Digitized by the Internet Archive In 2022 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation 3 https://archive.org/details/fiveprimitivemasOO000uhde S20) ie ac isR e cP) Wes GLfeAC aloD Be Tey a PRIMITIVE MASTERS Le ANGAS T D BY RALPH. TMOMSs:0'N $ Tre SOUADRANGLE PRESS NEW. ad ORO MiG hE Copyright 1949. The Quadrangle Press, Inc., New York. Printed in U.S.A. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS BOOK, ITS ILLUSTRATIONS OR PARTS THEREOF, MUST NOT BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT PERMISSION. Ao eet uch. AO) ake 5S Pe har Bee \.. Ok 2D When I first decided to write this book, I had a scholarly and rather ambitious plan in mind. For years I had been accumulating factual material on the artists in question, and I intended to give a chronological account of the life ef each and the fullest possible catalogue of their works. But circumstances prevented my carrying out this design. Returning to Paris at the end of the second World W ar, I found that my file of biographical notes, critical memoranda, reproductions, etc., had disap- peared during the Occupation. To begin all over again would have taken a great deal of time—quite possibly more time han I still had at my disposal. There was nothing left to do except to renounce my original plan, and to content myself with a discussion of the most im- portant aspects of each career, using as a primary source my own impressions and recollections. It follows that the present book is less factual and more subjective than would otherwise have been the case. Nevertheless, the art historian who may later write a formal history of the group will find here hints and details that should lighten his labors considerably. Of the five artists discussed, Rousseau, Vivin and Séraphine are now dead. I knew them well during their latter years, and the other two, Bombois and Bauchant, are still my good friends. My feeling is that these five, because of their singular simplicity and self- dedication, form a group of their own within die wider circle of modern Primitive art. I have written of them before—in articles for magazines, in my book Picasso et la Tradition Frangaise, and in the Histoire de I Art Contem- porain, edited by René Huyghe and Germain Bazin. These earlier com- ments are summed up and given something like final form here, although the bulk of the text is now first published. Much of the chapter on the Douanier, however, is taken, with minor changes, from my Henri Rousseau, which was published in France by Eugene Figuiere in 1911 and which helped to establish the Douanier’s fame. It later appeared in two German editions and was heavily drawn upon, when the French edition was out of print, for the major Rousseau monographs. Collector, critic, dealer and historian, Wilhelm Uhde (1874-1947) was born in Germany but spent most of his adult life in France. Among his books are the aforementioned Henri Rousseau (Paris, 1911), pioneer work of its kind; Picasso et la Tradition Frangaise (Paris, 1928); and an autobiography, Von Bismarck bis Picasso (Zurich, 1938). Uhde was reading proof on the present work in its original edition (Zurich, 1947) the day before he died. Vhate Do Crigany WILHELAL CHDE: PARIS 1947
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