GALLERY OF LIVING ART [NEW YORK UNIVERSITY]
A. E. Gallatin and Jacques Mauny, Maximilien Vox [Designer]
A. E. Gallatin and Jacques Mauny: GALLERY OF LIVING ART [NEW YORK UNIVERSITY]. Paris: Horizons de France under the artistic direction of Maximilien Vox, July 30, 1930. First edition. Text in English. Slim quarto. Die-cut silver metallic wrappers. Colored cellophane endsheets. 16 pp. printed in 2-color letterpress. 44 black and white plates. 12 pp. checklist of all the works in the collection, organized alphabetically by artist (60 listed, with details of their painting(s) in the collection. Elaborate mise-en-page and typography by Maximilien Vox throughout. Wrappers lightly scratched and well worn along spine, with vintage tape reinforcements. Fore edge curling. Faint offsetting to endpapers due to the cellophane endsheets. Cellophane endsheets lightly chipped at joints. A fair to good copy only. Rare.
5 x 7.25 perfect bound and stitched booklet with stunning Parisian Art Deco typography courtesy of Maximilien Vox and 44 black and white plates. An elaborate production reminescent in terms of materials and production to A. M. Cassandre's BIFUR promotional booklet [Paris: Deberny et Peignot, 1929]. Title page is followed by a four-page essay by A. E. Gallatin, followed by a nine-page essay on The Gallery of Living Art by Jacques Mauny. This is followed by 44 full-sheet black and white plates. After the plates there is a listing of all the works in the collection, organized alphabetically by artist (60 artists are listed, with detailed listings of their painting(s) in the collection.
Includes work by Henry Billings, Georges Braque, A. M. Cassandre, Marc Chagall, Georgio de Chirico, Charles Demuth, Andre Derain, Raoul Dufy, Juan Gris, Marcel Gromaire, Max Jacob, Paul Klee, Roger de La Fresnaye, Charles Lapicque, Marie Laurencin, Fernand Leger, John Marin, Andre Masson, Pierre Matisse, Jacques Mauny, Joan Miro, Jules Pascin, Pablo Picasso, Joseph Pollet, Man Ray, Charles Sheeler, Haim Soutine, Maurice De Vlaminck, and [?] Siegel.
"The Gallery of Living Art, New York University, was founded in order that the public might have the opportunity to study the many phases of the newer influences at work in progressive twentieth century painting, not only in private collections and at picture dealers, but in a public museum containing a permanent collection."
From the web site for New York University: "Open to the public free of charge from 8 am to 10 pm every weekday and on Saturdays until 5 pm, and steeped in the informal, comfortable atmosphere of a college study hall, the Gallery of Living Art served contemporary American artists as — in Gallatin's own words — a 'laboratory' for 'exploration and experimentation' and a forum for intellectual exchange. Its greatest contribution lay in spurring the development of the New York School. Hans Hofmann often brought his classes to the Gallery for firsthand discussions in front of the pictures. Other frequent visitors included Arshile Gorky, Philip Guston, David Smith, Robert Motherwell, Adolf Gottlieb, and Elaine and Willem de Kooning, all of whom have testified to the Gallery's vital role in introducing them to the vocabulary of Cubism and biomorphic abstraction. In December 1942, constrained by the wartime economy, University administrators decided to convert the South Study Hall into a library processing facility. Gallatin was soon contacted by Fiske Kimball, director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art . . . . Kimball offered Gallatin a suite of rooms in which to hang his collection and agreed to allow him to continue to add or subtract works at will."