Publisher's Synopsis
The edition of a substantial corpus of more than two hundred unpublished letters by Italian artists and a critic, active after the Second World War, supports an extended investigation that sheds light on the art system between Italy, France and Europe, through the mirror of the extremely vital personality of Edouard Jaguer, poet, art critic and founder of the magazine and movement Phases. Analysing the exhibitions, projects, international relations and history, hitherto disregarded by national and international historiography - but also the crucial role played by politics in the immediate post-World War II period - this study investigates, from a new perspective, a complex moment in a part of European contemporary art history, showing its as yet unhistoricised side, which actually shifts some of the points taken for granted by international historiography. The central role that Jaguer played in promoting Italian artists whose research oscillated between Surrealism and non-figurative art, between Informalism and its overcoming, sheds light on a part of art history, between the 1940s and the 1960s, that has been almost completely ignored until now. Enriching the volume is the correspondence of the only Italian critic, Enrico Crispolti, who collaborated with Jaguer on important exhibitions and publications.
