CASSANDRE by Roland Mouron, Estate of A.M.CASSANDRE
A.M.CASSANDRE BY ROLAND MOURON
A.M.CASSANDRE
A GRAPHIC TRAGEDY
ACT 3 (1939-1968)​
RETURN TO THE STAGE
On September 3, 1939, like millions of Frenchmen, Cassandre was called up to serve. Enlisted as a driver, he served far from the front and ended his war as soon as Marshal Pétain's France surrendered to the German invaders.
In the autumn of 1940, returning to Paris, he found the capital much changed. Advertising now shared space with the propagandist slogans of the occupiers, and green-gray uniforms filled the café terraces. Paris was living under German time. Jobless and penniless, with only his precious address book in his pocket, he had to start from scratch. Fortunately, the Vichy government was undertaking a massive project aimed at restoring France's place on the new European chessboard.
On May 31, 1941, the Exhibition of European France opened its doors with great fanfare. 600,000 visitors would glimpse the country's bright future in the great European endeavor of the Third Reich. Highlighted was the French luxury industry, for which Cassandre was tasked with designing the haute couture stand. A mere cog in this propaganda machine, he nevertheless found an opportunity to stand out. By offering a presentation influenced by the most shocking couturière of the time, Italian Elsa Schiaparelli, the white hands and doves he placed on the mannequins surprised with their surrealistic imprint.
Soon, the fashion house Lucien Lelong, whose clients included Michèle Morgan, Greta Garbo, and Colette, offered him a collaboration. And it was at the grand couturier’s fashion show in Lyon a few months later that he met Nadine Robinson, with whom he would share his life and who would become his second wife.In November 1942, the prestigious Drouin gallery opened its doors to him. For Cassandre, the opportunity was a real challenge, especially since his production did not meet the standards he had set for himself. The paintings presented on the evening of the opening, however, met with some critical acclaim but were sorely lacking in depth. Only one piece stood out: a full-length portrait of Mademoiselle Chanel.
For the rest, he was lambasted by the critics. Cassandre then realized that he had embarked on a dead-end path. Painting would never allow him to make a living or reach the heights his talents as a graphic designer had taken him.
Portrait of Coco Chanel
Yet, in this Paris where the Nazi flag flies, cultural life continues. Paradoxically, despite the war, the French have never read so many books, visited museums so often, or attended the cinema and theater in such large numbers. Sensing the spirit of the times, Cassandre temporarily abandons painting to focus on designing theater sets. He refines the technique he used for the Normandie poster: "over-proportion," playing with scale relationships between the set and the actor to thrust the latter towards the audience. " In theater, this over-proportion of the actor is heightened by their tangible presence contrasted against the virtual representation of a space, a representation that makes the spectator an accomplice. And this complicity is essential to the actor. "
The innovation is so groundbreaking that it instantly captivates the Paris Opera.​
With the same rigor and dedication as before, he designs the set for Le Chevalier et la Damoiselle, a ballet by Serge Lifar. Rather than situating the production in the Middle Ages, as per the spirit of the piece, he blends symmetrical compositions with inspirations drawn from late 14th-century primitives. His contribution to Jean-François Noël's creation, Le Survivant, also offers him the opportunity to reveal his flair for dramatic opulence. The sumptuousness of the costumes he designs immediately garners admiration.
But it is in 1947 that Cassandre fully asserts his talent as a painter-architect. Using the traditional technique of baroque set design, he creates a dreamlike palace for Serge Lifar's Les Mirages, constructed with linear perspective, where the monochrome model allows the light of the projectors to imbue the scene with mystery. At dawn, the palace slowly vanishes, giving way to a sun-scorched chalky landscape where the main character reunites with their shadow, never to part from it again, accompanied by the pounding brass of Sauguet's music.​
Following the Paris Opera, the Comédie des Champs-Élysées and the Monte Carlo Opera follow suit. Crowned with success, Cassandre appears to have found a form of expression that suits him. Yet, this is not the case. His desire to exist through painting remains intact. As Paris is liberated and reconstruction begins, the air is filled with the grinding sounds of cranes heralding a new era. He writes: " Today, my painting no longer sustains me; even less so since we have been free, because now you have to be either a Cubist or a Communist to win the favor of those gentlemen on Rue de la Boétie. My little outdated painting is far from that! So, I have been forced to take up more lucrative tasks again, trying to minimize the damage as much as possible. "​
Le Chevalier et la Demoiselle 1941
Then suddenly, in 1946, a commission from the house of Hermès turned everything upside down. The prestigious brochure he designed to promote the brand’s perfumes became another success. This was followed by further collaborations with the renowned saddler, including the Perspective silk scarf. The design, featuring a mise en abyme of twelve columns set against a cloudy sky, soon elegantly adorned the necks of wealthy women worldwide.
But it was with the construction of the open-air Italian-style theater for the Aix-en-Provence Festival, along with the creation of the sets and costumes for Mozart's Don Giovanni—featured during the theater's inauguration—that Cassandre achieved a resounding success, one that extended far beyond France's borders.
Once again at the height of his craft, his entire body of work was celebrated during the grand exhibition at the Museum of Decorative Arts in 1950. Reassured and reinvigorated, the artist felt ready to take on a new challenge: staging the tragedies of Racine.
His eternal drive for renewal remained undiminished—for better or for worse.
Don Giovanni 1949​​​​​​
Hermes Perspectives 1946
CASSANDRE CAUGHT BY CASSANDRE
In 1959, as France entered the golden era of the "Trente Glorieuses," Cassandre defied the spirit of the times and chose to set the play in the era of Louis XIV. A mistake that would cost him dearly: the critical reception was unanimously disastrous, putting an abrupt end to his theater career. Fifteen years in the world of performance had taken their toll. His obsessive perfectionism, amphetamine abuse, sleepless nights, and his second divorce left him drained, plunging him once again into the depths of depression." The Racine fiction that allowed me to live in another world for the past three months, once broken and tucked away in drawers, leaves me now like an idiot stubbornly trying to survive in a world that no longer concerns me. "
Yet, like a phoenix rising from its ashes, two years later, Cassandre found himself on the cusp of a new
passion: album covers.
The proliferation of LP records and the widespread adoption of turntables in homes rekindled his interest in graphic design. For Pathé and La Voix de son Maître, he created a series of visuals for classical music releases with rare elegance, though they sadly no longer aligned with the tastes of the public. Early 1960s France was far removed from the era when his instincts had propelled him to the top.
Cassandre withdrew from the bustle of Paris and retreated permanently to the countryside. " My entire life has been driven by two innate tendencies: a need for formal perfection that compelled me to create as a craftsman, fully aware of both my duties and my limitations, and an ardent thirst for lyricism yearning to be free—contradictory impulses, difficult to reconcile in today’s world... " In the countryside, he tried to create a new life for himself, to put down roots, but in vain. Soon, money began to run out. His neurasthenia worsened, yet he never lost his sense of ethics.He wrote: "Art was always, for me, a projection toward the future, a contained force that was released—a deed, not a contemplation."​
A LOGO FOR HISTORY​​
It was then that Pierre Bergé, the Pygmalion of the young designer Yves Saint Laurent, entrusted Cassandre with creating the logo for the fashion house he had just founded. Shut away in his studio, Cassandre envisioned a design that was both understated and modern. He made only one proposal: the now-legendary monogram of three interwoven initials.
But his career was already behind him. His final typographic invention, the Cassandre, an eponymous typeface, ended in failure. Claiming a likely lack of commercial success, the type foundries flatly refused to market it. Penniless, weakened both physically and mentally, and starved for recognition, the time had come for him to sign his last work. Clear-eyed, he wrote: "As death, when closely considered, is the true ultimate purpose of life, I have, for several years, become so familiar with this genuine and perfect friend of man that her image no longer holds any fear for me but instead is very calming, very consoling..."
In the summer of 1966, a first suicide attempt left him drained. The second, meticulously planned, succeeded exactly two years later. On June 17, 1968, as France grappled with an unprecedented wave of social unrest, Cassandre took his own life. Before his lifeless body, one of his close friends remarked: " In an apartment gleaming with cleanliness, our friend, impeccably dressed, was lying in a position of absolute repose, one hand on his heart, his feet crossed, the folds of the pillow forming a star around his head."
A perfectionist to the very end...
EPILOGUE​
Cassandre leaves behind more than a hundred iconic images that laid the foundation for visual communication in advertising. Hundreds of graphic designers, stylists, painters, and designers around the world continue to draw inspiration from his legacy today. A brilliant innovator, Cassandre constantly reinvented himself.
Driven by an insatiable perfectionism, his quest for the absolute pushed him to surpass himself, even as it led to his downfall. Yet, by striving to reach the widest audience, his creations, preserved in collective memory, have outlived him.
His friend and fellow poster artist, Savignac, who worked alongside him, paid tribute to his curious, inventive, and determined spirit: " Cassandre was a man who worked himself to death doing other people's jobs. He couldn’t stand it when people didn’t push their abilities to the limit. People and things had to give their very best. He did it himself and expected the same from others. The unfinished, the unexplored, made him ill. To stop hearing, 'What you're asking for is impossible,' he learned every aspect of the trades he practiced. And when he provided material proof that what he demanded was achievable, he didn’t boast. He was satisfied because it served the work he was undertaking. Few men have likely been as rigorous as he was. "
NOTES
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Too few exhibitions—Musée des Arts Décoratifs in 1950, Seibu in Tokyo in 1984, Suntory in 1995, and the BnF in 2005—have captured the vast richness of A.M. Cassandre's body of work. Rare monographs, such as CASSANDRE by Henri Mouron and CASSANDRE by Alain Weill, have shared the depth and wealth of his creations.
It seems essential to organize events highlighting the history of this artist, considering his ongoing influence on the worlds of advertising, theater, and typography. This artist, with his extreme dedication to perfection, devoted his entire life to his craft, adhering to an uncompromising artistic vision. However, throughout his life, Cassandre was torn between his desire for widespread artistic recognition and his hidden aspiration to express himself through what he considered a "higher art" : painting.
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Faced with the "physical" incapacity to continue creating art at the end of his life, his unrelenting quest for perfection led him inexorably to suicide. Nonetheless, he left behind a "singular" legacy of works that remain influential across numerous fields.
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I pay tribute to my father, Henri Mouron, son and first biographer of A.M. Cassandre, who made the discovery of my grandfather possible through his book CASSANDRE, dedicated to his father's work.
Finally, I extend my gratitude to the Suntory Museum, the BnF, and Mr. Ruki Matsumoto—Cassandre’s most fervent admirer—and especially to Mr. Alain Weill for his unwavering friendship and his brilliant monograph CASSANDRE. My thanks also go to Mrs. Béatrice Saalburg and Mrs. Sylvia Colle-Lorant for their steadfast commitment to sharing the work of this renowned yet underappreciated creator.​
© ROLAND MOURON - AM.CASSANDRE