Hommage a Marcoussis; Paris 1962

Paris: galerie kriegel, 1962. First edition. Wraps. Very Good/No dust jacket. 8vo. Wraps. 27pp. illus. b&w and color plates. French Text by Gaston Bachelard. Marcoussis was a painter and engraver of Polish origin who lived in Paris for much of his life and became a French citizen. In the cafés of Montmartre and Montparnasse he got to know Apollinaire, Braque, Degas, Picasso and many more artists and writers. It was Apollinaire who suggested Markus' French name, Marcoussis, after a village not far from Paris. Impressionism influenced his early paintings, but from about 1911 he was part of the Cubist movement alongside other avant-garde painters like Picasso, Braque, Juan Gris and those of the Section d'Or. From 1930 onwards, much as his friend Clément Serveau, he concentrated on printmaking and illustration, including work inspired by Apollinaire's Alcool, Tzara's Indicateur des chemins de cœur, and Éluard's Lingères légères and Aurélia. In the late 1930s Marcoussis collaborated with Spanish surrealist Joan Miró and taught him etching techniques, culminating in Miró's Black and Red Series, now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art.