L'Ymagier

1894. L'Ymagier. Edited by Alfred Jarry and Rémy de Gourmont. Eight issues (all published). Total of 262 reproductions of woodcuts, drawings, engravings, lithographs, etc. 4to, four volumes in 255 x 200 mm, and four volumes 275 x 215 mm, bound in 2 contemporary half morocco volumes with the original publisher's wrappers preserved. Paris: October 1895-December 1896. The splendid Josefowitz copy of this legendarily rare and important periodical. Jarry edited the first four issues with Rémy de Gourmont (novelist, poet, playwright and philosopher), and the remaining four were edited by de Gourmont alone. In L'Ymagier I the editors announced their intention (truncated) to publish about 200 images each year, including old vignettes, works by Dürer, restrikes from old blocks conserved in Troyes, and eight large folio Images d'Épinal specially printed (or re-printed) for L'Ymagier. The town of Épinal was, since 1782, the home of the Péllerin company that produced thousands of popular prints, now uniformly referred to as Images d'Épinal. In L'Ymagier, works by contemporary artists, including the editors, appeared together with historical and popular prints. The first three volumes of L'Ymagier include a significant sampling of works by artists associated with Pont-Aven: Filiger, Armand Séguin, Roderic O'Conor, Émile Bernard, Louis Roy and perhaps Gauguin, who is represented by a print after one of his compositions. The second issue contains Henri Rousseau's celebrated lithograph "Guerre" and the fifth issue contains a lithograph by Whistler on Japon as called for in the Éditions de Luxe. Though short lived, Jarry and Gourmont's work in L'Ymagier and the magazine's highly symbolist style influenced many artists and writers of the early 20th century, notably Pablo Picasso and Max Jacob, who would build on Jarry and Gourmont's work in symbolism through Surrealism and Dadaism in the 1900s. L'Ymagier was a sort of museum in print with its vast array of prints, both originals and reproductions, using examples from Duerer and Cranach to imagerie populaire. Provenance: Noe de Salverte and Sam Josefowitz. From Manet to Hockney nos. 11A and 11B. Chapon, Le Peintre et le Livre 36-7. (Inventory #: 172284)