A.M.CASSANDRE BY ALAIN WEILL

« Poetry, that's a word that is hardly ever spoken anymore; as for poets, they walk along the walls for fear of being mocked. And yet, everything is there. Reviewing Cassandre's posters with this perspective undoubtedly gives the key. It is this 'poetics of space' that his son, Henri Mouron, spoke of, which evokes a rare and often unique emotion. Cassandre, presented here, remains an essential reference, a model. And what if we talked about poetry again in the age of the computer? »

Alain Weill for the BnF, 2005.

« The poster is not, and should not be, like the painting, a unique item meant to satisfy the capricious love of a single more or less enlightened collector; it must be a mass-produced object, reproduced in thousands of copies, just like them, meant to serve certain material purposes and fulfill a commercial function. »

A.M.CASSANDRE

Expert in graphic arts and advertising creation and art critic, Alain Weill has devoted numerous works and exhibition catalogs to graphic arts and advertising posters, including Paul Colin, affichiste (1989), Cassandre (1995), Le Design graphique (2003), and a monograph CASSANDRE (2018), awarded the Paul-Marmottan prize and the Special Prize of the Academy of Fine Arts.

Alain Weill delivers with this reference biography: "CASSANDRE," a work of exceptional documentary richness that finally reveals the man behind the icon of modern graphic design. This masterful synthesis, the fruit of forty years of research, transcends the simple artist monograph to offer a true radiography of 20th-century French graphic art.

The author perfectly masters his subject, combining technical erudition and critical sensitivity to restore the complexity of an absolute creator. His rigorous chronological approach, nourished by unpublished archives and precious testimonies, allows us to understand the evolution of a creative genius grappling with the mutations of his era. Alain Weill particularly excels in the analysis of technical innovations (regulatory layout, typographic revolutions) while never forgetting the human dimension of the character.

This definitive biography, remarkably illustrated and documented, establishes itself as the unsurpassable reference work on Cassandre, offering specialists as well as neophytes a total understanding of the one who revolutionized the art of the poster. A first-rate historian's work that finally does justice to a visionary creator too long misunderstood.