Welcome to Est. 1999, the official blog of Abraham Translations. As is perhaps easy to surmise, the name of this blog reflects the year that Abraham Translations was founded.
It all began with the correction of a few texts that had been translated by another time-pressed translator. Within the year, translating had become my main source of income; now, it has long been the only way I put bacon on the table.
I am rather proud of many of the projects on which I have worked.
Est. 1999, basically, is a visual confirmation of past projects, a blowing of my own horn, a presentation of translator-related topics, and an occasional departure into other areas that I deem worthy of presenting. Enjoy.

Monday 28 September 2015

Andre Masson – Femmes

(ISBN-10: 3925782737 / ISBN-13: 978-3925782732)
Cover art: André Masson, Nu devant le Feu, 1944, pastel on paper, 24.5 x 20 cm.
This 88-page, hardcover bilingual (German and English) catalogue from 2015 accompanied an exhibition at Die Galerie, Frankfurt am Main. It includes texts by Dr. Carla Schulz-Hofmann, Dr. Achim Sommer, Francis Marmande and Peter Femfert.
André-Aimé-René Masson (4 January 1896 – 28 October 1987) was, of course, one of the major French artists of the Modernist Period, and his influence can still be felt today. It is always a thrill for me when I get to work on projects involving art heroes that I not only respect, but that have influenced me (if indiscernibly) as an artist.
To simply quote the gallery flyer (which I translated): "Little consideration has been given heretofore to André Masson's connection to the feminine. Now, DIE GALERIE is putting this special affinity into the forefront of our fourth major solo exhibition of the French Surrealist: for the first time ever, all facets of Masson's perception of women are presented in this selection of approximately 50 paintings, works on paper and sculptures. Few other symbolic figures present in all of André Masson's creative periods fuse the philosophy and art of the artist as intensely as his portrayal of women. Beginning with cubistically abstract female bodies of the 1920s, the exhibition spans an arc from the impressive paintings produced during his major Surrealist period all the way up to the effortlessly airy, graphically spontaneous style of Filles de la Rue Saint Denis. Our exhibition honors an artistic genius who truly deserves his position alongside his important and popular contemporaries."
Example of a piece in the exhibition:
André Masson, Trois Nus, 1950,
oil on canvas, 65.5 x 50 cm.
An interesting aside, which has nothing to do with the show or catalogue, Masson's brother-in-law, the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, was the last private owner of Gustave Courbet's famous and undeniably provocative painting L'Origine du monde ("The Origin of the World"), which, believed to have been modeled by Joanna Hiffernan, as far as I know now hangs in Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

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