Caractères – Formes et Couleurs n°1 1945 7e année

Lausanne: Held, 1945. 4to (31x23cm), illustrated card wrappers. Unpaginated 162pp. Text in French. Wrappers slightly rubbed and creased at extremities. Tiny piece of spine-tail slightly detached, not affecting the binding, with a small closed tear on rear cover. Contents clean and unmarked. Very good.

The art magazine Formes et Couleurs was one of the most important French-language art magazine published in Switzerland and France during and after World War II. Founder and editor André Held launched the magazine in 1939 after studying at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig. Formes et Couleurs appeared six times a year at Held‘s family print shop in Lausanne, Switzerland, until it was discontinued in 1955.

In collaboration with Maurice Noël, the founder of Figaro littéraire, the magazine offered a home for authors such as Hermann Hesse, Jean Cocteau, Albert Camus, Le Corbusier, André Malraux, Paul Valéry, and many more. Formes et Couleurs stood out for its fantastic reproductions, but also for the numerous advertisements in colour, illustrated by artists, like George LePape and Guy Arnoux.

The cover of this issue was designed by Le Corbusier and includes one of Chris Marker’s first poems Chant de Guerre, which appeared under one of his early pseudonyms, Marc Dornier. Caractères includes the following topics:

Hommage A Jaques Guenne; La Colonne by Peter Meyer; Caractères Du Baroque by Alexandre Cingria; L’Esprit Heroique Dans L’Art by Jacques Guenne; Ceux De L’Empire Et Ceux Des Etats-Unis Ou Formes Et Couleurs by Winifred Katzin; Caractères De La Femme Hindoue Et Femmes De L’Orient Et De L’Occident by Madhukar Babaji Musale; Saidou Le Sculpteur by H. Gaschen; Les Icones Paysannes Roumaines by Constantin Brailoiu; L’Art Macabre Au Tessin by Piero Bianconi; Caractères A Prendre by Clarisse Francillon; Chant de Guerre (poème) by Marc Dornier; Theodore Strawinsky by Francis Carco de l’Académie Goncourt.