George Desvallières, catalogue raisonné of the complete work

As the rhythm of publocations accelerates – publication and obsolescence are almost contemporary phenomenae – the catalogues raisonnés seem to remind us of the virtues of patience from another era. This publication required some twenty years of research, directed by the artist’s grand-daughter. The figures are obviously very impressive: 49 pages of bibliography, 30 pages of index of the works, 2675 recent issues of which some 600 paintings, some one hundred pastels, 1600 drawings, 320 illustrations and 40 stained glass works. For each work the technique, the origin and the history of the exhibits are analyzed as much as the investigation allowed it. A long 80-year career is offerd to us in a panoramic vision, from the Prussien et le concierge, a drawing on a school notebook with lines from 1870 (the author was then 9 years old), a Notre-Dame des Neiges, an oil painting on paintd canvas from 1950, on the eve of his own death, for a small chapel at Guebwiller, in the Vosges region, very close to where his own son had died in combat during World War I.

• George Desvallières, catalogue raisonné of the complete work directed by Catherine Ambroselli de Bayser, Somogy, 2016, 3 vol., 1048 p., €380.