Verve No. 3 - An Artistic and Literary Quarterly

Multiple Artists

Verve's October - December 1938 features it's first theme - The Orient, and covers the art of the Middle East and East Asia. The cover was designed by Pierre Bonnard and the original issuing box by Chagall. The content features color lithographs by the artists Marc Chagall ("Spring"), Joan Miro ("Summer"), Abe Rattner ("Autumn"), and Paul Klee ("Winter"), all printed by Mourlot.

Heliogravures and color process images include the reproduced works of Hindu artists (including gilt detailing), Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, and many others. Photography includes works by Gaetan Fouquet, Rogi Andre, Schneider-Lengyel, and many others. Text includes works by Rabindranath Tagore, Roger Caillois, Henri Michaux, Chinese poets, and others. This copy is accompanied by its original issuing box (see images).

Excerpted from the website for DTMAGAZINE ["Magazine of the Week: Paris and the Art World of the Late 1930s in Verve magazine", Rick Gagliano, 10/12/06]. "When it comes to quality in the magazine process, possibly no other magazine can match the work of publisher Efstratios Teriade (born in Greece as Efstratios Eleftheriades) and his seminal publication, 'Verve' -- once called 'the most beautiful magazine in the world' by one of its backers - which first burst onto the streets of Paris in December of 1937 . . . .

Teriade, an ex-law student with more zeal for the art world and publishing than the law worked variously with fellow countryman Christian Zervos on Cahiers d'Art (1926-31), as art critic for the newspaper L'Intransigeant (1928-33), artistic director of Minotaure (1933-36) and co-founder (1935-36) of La Bete Noire before founding Verve with the financial assistance of David Smart, publisher of Esquire and Apparel Arts. . . .

The magazine, a quarterly review of arts and letters, was lavish in design and challenging in content. Teriade's view of the world of art and literature was personal, bold and compelling. The 38 issues that proceeded through Europe's war-torn years and ended abruptly in 1960 were a promenade of covers and interior art by Chagall, Bonard, Matisse, Picasso, Braque, and other distinctive artists of the Paris School.

Photographs by Man Ray, Dora Maar, Matthew Brady, Brassai, Cartier-Bresson, Blumenfeld graced many pages and accompanied articles and prose by luminaries of none less identity than John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Andre Malraux, Jean-Paul Sartre, Andre Gide, Albert Camus and others of note, often the presented artists themselves."