André Salmon on French Modern Art

Beth S. Gersh-Ne∫ic is Director of the New York Arts Exchange. She is the author of The Early Criticism of André Salmon: A Study of his Thoughts on Cubism (1991).

• Introduction; Part I. La jeune peinture française: 1. Foreword; 2. The Fauves; 3. Anecdotal history of Cubism; 4. Contemporary art; 5. A rebirth of French landscape painting; 6. Twentieth century women painters; Part II. La jeune sculpture française: 1. Foreword; 2. The fable of the Little Tin Fish; 3. Doctrine; 4. Under the Gates of Hell; 5. The West; 6. Figurative sculptors; 7. Sculptresses; 8. Humanism; 9. Cannibalism; 10. El Guitare.

'The more scabrous the story, the more exquisitely it was told. The best of his art criticism combines a sharp focus on an artist's individual characteristics with an often acerbic wit, evident in his observations (both made in La jeune peinture française) that Kees van Dogen 'confused the artist's box of colours with the prostitute's box of makeup' and that André Chapuy 'is a painter of habits: bad habits'. … contributes a useful introduction, outlining his biography and considering his relationship to nominalist aesthetics.' Burlington Magazine