Cahiers d’art, musée Zervos à Vézelay

He was a curious character, mysterious in many ways, who -with his review and his publishing house on rue du Dragon, at Saint-Germain-des-Prés- travelled together over quite a distance with the art of the XXe century. Christian Zervos, born on the island of Cephalonia in 1889, whose childhood we know very little about, published a review with his wife Yvonne for decades. The review, Les Cahiers d’art, was basic (and basically deficitary) but he even burnt his wooden floor for it…The years after the war were kinder to him, marked in particular by the publication of the catalogue raisonné of his friend Picasso and by the unforgetable art exhibition at the Popes’ Palace of Avignon in 1947, with René Char: simply the genesis of the Avignon festival as Jean Vilar was called in for a theatre event… All of these episodes are described in detail as well the most important works brought together by Zervos: Braque, Léger, Mirò, Picasso, Laurens, Charchoune, etc. Just before his death, in 1970, he donated his possesions to the municipality of Vezelay, where he had a residence. Twenty five years later, his museum finally exists, in… Romain Rolland’s house! His collection can be seen there since the month of May 2006.

• Cahiers d’art, Zervos museum in Vézelay, collective work, directed by Christian Derouet, Hazan publishing house, ISBN : 2-7541-0053-9, 2006, 50 €.