Cahiers d’Art, the French magazine that in its day boasted the likes of Miró and Matisse as cover artists, has been resurrected. And we’re glad to see more of the same.
One day in 2011, Swedish art collector Staffan Ahrenberg happened upon the Cahiers d’Art bookstore on the rue du Dragon in Paris, surprised to see that the defunct publication still had an address. Pushing open the door, he asked who the company’s current owner was, and whether he might sell. ’I have no idea where the question came from,’ he says. ’It was just instinct.’
Soon afterwards it was his. Founded in 1926 by the art critic Christian Zervos, Cahiers d’Art was a revue, publishing house and gallery that collaborated with artists such as Joan Miró and Alexander Calder before the final issue in 1960. In October, the magazine made its comeback in French and English, edited by Ahrenberg, former Art Basel director Samuel Keller and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist.
It features a cover by artist Ellsworth Kelly and uses the original typography. Ahrenberg is also relaunching the publishing house and gallery. ’I feel privileged to have been able to buy it,’ he says. ’It was a sleeping beauty that was possible to revive, and where nothing had to be corrected.’
