Second Edition. Two Volumes. 512, 552 pages. The first edition of the catalogue raisonné of the paintings of Juan Gris was published in Paris in 1977, in a limited edition of 800 copies. It has been out of print for a number of years and the publisher of this publication obtained permission from the heirs of the original publisher, Heinz Berggruen and from the successor in interest to the author, the J. Paul Getty Trust, for this second edition.Douglas Cooper (1911-1984) worked on the Gris project for forty years, beginning in 1937. Cooper's passion was Cubism, and his catalogue of Juan Gris is his major scholarly achievement. At age 21 in 1932 Cooper inherited a modest fortune which allowed him to collect and live as he wished. The early 1930s was a time when the Nazis were forcing Jewish collectors to flee and cash was king. Cooper made the acquaintance of the German-Swiss collector G.F. Reber and his mistress-client Ingeborg Eichmann, who had extensive Cubist collections and connections to other collectors. Cooper was able to purchase works from them to start his own collection. Although Cooper subsequently became a friend, collector and collaborator of the major 20th Century French Cubist masters Picasso, Braque and Léger, he never met Juan Gris, who died in 1927, when Cooper was still a teenager in England.Cooper catalogued and reproduced 620 paintings by Juan Gris in the catalogue raisonné. In addition, he catalogued a couple of hundred related works. His catalogue includes the three pillars that tell the life of each work being described: its owners (PROV.); its exhibition history (EXP.); and its appearance in publications (LIT.). Each catalogue entry also includes the title in French and English; the dimensions in cm. and inches; the medium and support (normally canvas or panel); signatures, dates and annotations on the work. The catalogue also includes indexes of titles and provenance; illustrations of exhibitions and works for the theaters; a chronology of the artist's life and exhibitions of his work; a bibliography; photographs of the artist and his circle and a survey of his work. There is also an instructive section on fakes. In the first edition all of the above is in French and the works at each catalogue entry are reproduced in black and white. This Second Edition revises and adds the following to the First Edition:1) More than half the works are now reproduced in color.2) A number of related works have been added to the catalogue.3) Cooper translated his own French introduction into English, intended for a book of essays that was never published. It appears here for the first time.4) Cooper annotated his own copy of the catalogue between 1977-1984 with new provenance and corrections to the first edition. These annotations appear in this edition at each relevant entry as Cooper Annotations.5) The Avis au Lecteur which is a guide to the catalogue is now translated as the Foreword.6) At each relevant entry, references to the work in the major exhibition catalogues and auction sales since 1977 are noted under the rubric NEW. New provenance (PROV.) is noted for public collections and for some private owners.7) The lithographs from Au Soleil du Plafond, the 1955 deluxe publication based on gouaches from circa 1916 are reproduced.8) Some entries have been corrected in light of subsequent scholarship and public sales.9) There are running heads giving the year of creation of the works on facing pages.10) There are new indexes for owners since 1977.11) Only one new painting has surfaced since the publication of the original edition and it is now included.12) Titles are now in French, English and Spanish.
