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It
is one of the best kept of secrets that Jean Varda
was once a portrait painter. Between the ages
of 14 and 19, first in his native Greece and later
in Paris, he turned out a succession of faces
in the manner of the Muddiest Old Masters. The
revulsion was so extreme that for over 50 years
Varda refused to paint a human face. He did collages,
iconography, but no faces.
Then
in 1965 he returned to Europe for a year's stay
and under its spell the old antipathy faded.
These sketches are the result. For the most part
they were drawn in the cafes &
streets of Malaga in Spain and the Vaucluse in
Southern France. They may perhaps be viewed as
a traveller's Demonology: The Bore, The Hostess,
The Lecher, T ' h ' e Angry Man, The Jesuit and
many whom he groups under the general heading
of Weirdies.
An
incorrigible metaphysician, Varda has given some
of them the simulacra of horns, "They are
the dangerous ones," he says, "the others
are perhaps to be pitied." But, he insists,
they are portraits, not caricatures.
The
original drawings were done with oil crayons on
faintly lined school notebooks. But in preparing
them for offset lithography so much new work was
done by the artist that I think they may properly
be called lithographs rather than reproductions.
- G. H.
One
thousand copies of this portfolio have been printed
by George Hitchcock & Jacqueline McFarland
at the kayak press
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