Nicholas De Stal

Nicholas De Stal (1961) by Douglas Cooper – Weidenfeld and Nicolson

Modern art has always had a wonderful ability to divide a room.

One person sees colour, structure, emotion and form.

Another sees several large rectangles and quietly wonders whether the painting has been hung upside down.

Nicholas De Stal, written by Douglas Cooper and published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in 1961, is a serious study of the painter better known as Nicolas de Staël, one of the most distinctive figures in post-war European art.

De Staël’s paintings occupy that intriguing territory between abstraction and representation, where landscapes, figures, buildings and still lifes seem to emerge from great slabs of colour without ever feeling obliged to become completely literal.

In other words, you can often tell what you are looking at.

Eventually.

His work is bold, architectural and intensely concerned with colour, surface and composition. Paint is not merely applied; it appears to have been constructed, stacked and pushed into place until the image acquires a physical presence of its own.

Douglas Cooper approaches the artist with the seriousness expected of a substantial mid-century art monograph, examining de Staël’s development, methods and place within modern painting.

This is not one of those decorative art books containing three paragraphs of biography followed by forty pages designed mainly to coordinate with a coffee table.

It is a proper study.

Published only a few years after de Staël’s death in 1955, the book also has the particular interest of being relatively close to the artist’s own period, before decades of retrospective interpretation had accumulated around the work.

That gives it a pleasing immediacy.

De Staël had a short but extraordinarily productive career, moving through abstraction toward increasingly simplified landscapes, still lifes and figures while maintaining that unmistakable heavy, luminous use of colour.

His paintings can look restrained from across a room and unexpectedly vigorous when examined more closely.

They are the artistic equivalent of someone saying very little while somehow dominating the conversation.

For collectors of twentieth-century art books, this volume is also an appealing object in its own right.

Art publishing of the period had a certain confidence about it. Large illustrations, thoughtful criticism and substantial production values were expected to do the work without needing a fluorescent sticker promising “THE ARTIST WHO CHANGED EVERYTHING”.

The reader was simply trusted to look.

A radical concept.

This copy is in Good condition, making it a solid vintage example for anyone interested in modern European painting, post-war art, de Staël himself or the development of abstraction during the middle of the twentieth century.

It would suit artists, collectors, students, art historians or anyone who enjoys paintings in which a harbour, football match or landscape can be reduced to colour and shape without losing its atmosphere.

It is also ideal for the person who insists that modern art is easy because “anyone could do that”, since it provides an excellent opportunity to hand them a canvas and wait.

Sold by Crappy Old Books, where we appreciate bold composition, heavy impasto and any art book sturdy enough to survive sixty years without requiring restoration by the Tate.

ISBN: None
Condition: Good

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