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Francois <[log in to unmask]>
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Museum discussion list <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 14 Mar 1999 10:38:27 PST
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Special...Special...Special
                                   Press Release

                   "T H E   C O L O R S   O F   P A S S I O N"
                         http://www.tamarin.com/gerassi


This exhibit is for us much more than a simple virtual show. It is also
a call to pay homage to a great artist as well as an extraordinary man.
After intensive research in France,  Spain,  the US and Japan - research
which still needs much more legwork - we were compelled  to present to
you our dicoveries in the hopes that this would lead to recognition of a
great artist. Below you will find extracts from the web page as well as
amazing testimonies from Gerassi s friends such as Calder, Miro, Simone
de Beauvoir, Meyer Shapiro.....

                                  Bon voyage!!
                          http://www.tamarin.com/gerassi

               ==============================================


FERNANDO GERASSI WAS BORN A CENTURY AGO THIS YEAR IN ISTANBUL, TURKEY...

His work and his life are inseparable: one explains the other. For, as
one contemplates his canvasses, his paintings of astonishing colors, one
cannot avoid being struck by the great hopes, almost exaltations, the
violent passions, the loves and friendships of a whole life, but also
the confrontations, the betrayals, the pulverized ideals...
A film unwinding rapidly of Paris in the Thirties, of Barcelona in
flames, of the mountains of Vermont at peace.

Fernando Gerassi's work is complex, dramatic, upsetting, uplifting. It
follows closely his extraordinary history, as much his political
commitment and his ideological trajectory.
Between his first oils, in l927, and his death in l974, Gerassi travels
the gamut of modern art. Yet, throughout, characteristic constants are
clear: an inborn sense of color, which sometimes combine into a violent
fugue.

Though unknown to the general public, Fernando Gerassi traversed his
century in the company of those who thought, wrote and created in the
last 50 years, folks as varied as Sartre, Calder, Picasso, Malraux,
Meyer Shapiro, Miro, or Soviet Marshal Jukov....
Born in Istanbul in l899, he was intimately linked to the major events
of the 20th century, often thrown or throwing himself into the thick of
such upheavals as the creation and collapse of the Weimar Republic, the
pre-war revolutions of modern art of Montparnasse, of idealistic Popular
Frontism of Europe, of anti-fascism of  Madrid and Barcelona, of spying
and counterspying of Washington and New York... A passionate, dramatical
agitated life which ends in the tranquillity of  Vermont's rolling hills
"which look so much like the Basque country..."

                      =========================================

                                TESTIMONIES
                        http://www.tamarin.com/gerassi


"Spain's best painting is in Paris today, and it is in Paris that it can
conceive itself, feel itself, affirm itself as Spanish painting, as art
and act genuinely representing Spanish genius".
    - Jean Cassou, Catalogue of the exhibition at the College of Spain
of the Cite    Universitaire, Paris,  l935.


"In June, Stipha and Fernando descended on Paris, highly elated because,
after a long period of agitation, upheaval, and repression, the Republic
had finally been established in Spain".
    - Simone de Beauvoir, "The prime of life", World, Cleveland, 1962.


"A unique painter's temperament,  a rare understanding of
painting".(Gallery  Billiet-Worms, Paris.)
   - J. Laprade,  "Beaux-Arts", Paris, March 1935.


"He affected me then more than any other man alive. He was an
intellectual, like me. He was a painter, I was a writer. He had the same
point of view, the same basic vision of life. To him, painting was more
important than anything else. And then, just like that," he said
clicking his fingers, "Fernando went off to the fight. This really upset
me. We had both always wanted revolution, but then suddenly, here was an
intellectual like me, saying in effect, intellectuals must do what they
preach."
    - Inteview with Jean-Paul Sartre, Paris, 1971.


"He is a true romantic, following the direction of  instinct. Often he
works with a very thick past of color, shaping a motif of extreme
simplicity."
       - Dorothy Adlow,  "The Christian Science Monitor"  Boston, May
1957.


"He ridiculed the "war in lace ruffles", but at the same time I knew
that he could not find it in himself to condemn the magnanimity of the
militiamen who, though they swore dreadfully and on meeting one another
said "salud y dinamita", instead of "hullo", indignantly repudiated the
idea of blowing up the Alcazar: "What are you thinking of? There are
women and children inside!"
       - Ilya Ehrenbourg, "Memories, 1921-1941", World, N.Y., 1963.


"Ernest Hemingway, who was at the front, told me once in New York that
Fernando did everything he had to that day but never stopped crying.
Neither did Ehrenbourg".
      - John  Tito  Gerassi, "Memoirs", New York, 1964.


"These are paintings done for the love of painting and though the
dislocation of the war years has  been costly, there are clear signs in
this show of how far he can go now that he seems to have his grip on the
brushes again".
       - "Art Digest", New-York, April 1955.


"To those who demand recognizable details, it may seem little more than
a close-up of a rusty saw. But taken on its own terms, as evocation
rather than description, it can have the misty morning grandeur of a
mirage that stays".
      - Alexender Eliot, "Time Magazine", NY, March 1955.


"I told you that a letter from the Gerassi which filled me in on their
latest venom. They were stopped from going to France two years ago, and
since they didn't cooperate they were warned that they would be deported
to Spain, he an ex-red general in the civil war".
     - Simone de Beauvoir,  "Letters to Nelson Algreen," Gallimard,
Paris l997.


"Rarely does one see more energy symbolized in paintings today than in
the work of
Fernando Gerassi, artist of Putney, Vt., at the Panoras Gallery."
      - C.  B.,  "N.Y. Herald Tribune", New York, April  1955.


"Ehrenbourg also shared his true feelings with trusted friends. To
Stepha and  Fernando Gerassi, he disclosed his anguish over Soviet
anti-Semitism and the pressure Boris Pasternak was under in Moscow".
      - Joshua Rubenstein, "Tangled Loyalties", Harpers & Collins, New
York, 1996.


"The desire to be as free of preconceived  ideas as possible has allowed
Gerassi to paint in a number of different styles. There are very
abstract red blotches on green backgrounds that have an affinity with
Pollock and the Rorschach test, as well as recognizable still life and
landscapes. In this sense, Gerassi reminds us of his compatriot
Picasso".
      - Lowel J. Rubin, "The Harvard Crimson", Boston, May 1957.


"The painter Fernando Gerassi, showing work at the Panora Gallery, for
the first time in twenty years, turns visual experiences into emotional
ones".
     - S.  P., "New York Time", New York, April 1955.


"Fernando and Calder knew each other since the Thirties. Calder had
exhibited at the Gallery Billiet-Worms in Paris, in part thanks to
Fernando. It was also Fernando who had the idea of naming the sculptor
"Calderon de la Fuente" so that he could exhibit his famous "Mercury
Fountain" at the Spanish Pavillion at the 1937 World's Fair in Paris".
     - Recollections of Tito Gerassi.


"Works significantly and meticulously chosen:  a noble homage to that
genius by the
best works out of the best veins of Juan Gris, Cargallo and Maria
Blanchard, Bores, Gerassi, Gregorio Prieto, Castellon, Dali, Gonzales,
Bernal, de la Serna, Junyer, Miro".
     - "Beaux-Arts", No 126, Paris, 1935.


                             http://www.tamarin.com/gerassi
                      ==========================================

Francois Rojon
Tamarin Art Inc.
http://www.tamarin.com
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Lido Beach / New York
Tel/Fax: (516) 897-4207

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