Allegorical manuscript for King Francis I titled “Love’s Game of Chess” from Bibliotheque Nationale. See Verve no. 1 – call number N1 V4 1937.
The artistic and literary quarterly Verve was published in 1930s Paris by director Teriade (born Stratis Eleftheriades). Its mission was described as the following:
“VERVE proposes to present art as intimately mingled with the life of each period and to furnish testimony of the participation by artists in the essential events of their time.
It is devoted to artistic creation in all fields and all forms.
VERVE has adopted a traditional form.
It will present documents as they are, without any arrangement which might detract from their naturalness. The value of its elements will depend upon their character, the selection of them that has been made and the significance they assume through their disposition in the magazine.
Divagation by Henri Matisse. See Verve no. 1 – call number N1 V4 1937.
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.”
The prose and poetry published in Verve was by many famous writers of the early twentieth century, including Federico Garcia Lorca and Henri Michaux. The magazine also contains photographs by some of the most renowned and radical photographers of the time, such as Man Ray, Brassai, and Marcel Bovis. Henri Matisse, Abraham Rattner, and Gustave Courbet were just some of the illustrious painters included in the publication, amongst much older and anonymous work from the sixteenth century onwards.
A variety of images and writings from Verve will be featured consistently on the Puget Sound Archives & Special Collections tumblr. Here is a preview!
By Maya Steinborn