Modern Primitives: Masters of Naive Painting
New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1959. First Edition. Hard Cover. Good / Fair. Item #2199945
First edition. Cloth boards faintly toned. Large tear across front and rear of jacket, chip to jacket front.
290 pp. "Oto Bihalji-Merin was an acclaimed Yugoslav and Serbian writer, art historian, painter and art critic. In the aftermath of World War II, when art circles in Yugoslavia were pressured to adopt the socialist realism state-approved policies of the Soviet Union, Bihalji-Merin used his influence to defend modernist and naïve art styles. For this reason he is thought to have been instrumental in Yugoslavia's departure from the Soviet-style populist and heavily politically influenced visual arts. He also kept a lifelong interest in expressionist art which had flourished in Germany in the interwar period of his youth before Nazis came to power and labelled it degenerate art." CONTENTS: List of Illustrations; Photographs of the Painters; I. The Utopia of the Primitive; II. Art Outside Tradition; III. Primitive, Folk, and Naive Art; IV. Reality Renewed; V. The Douanier Rousseau; VI. The "Sacred Heart" Group and Others, in France; VII. American Primitives from Colonial Times to the Present; VIII. The Peasant Painters of Yugoslavia; IX. Naive Lyricism Elsewhere in Europe; X. Return to Nature; Acknowledgments; Bibliography; Additional Illustrations; Biographical Notes, and Works Reproduced; Index of Names.
Price: $45.00