Museums brought out the surrealistic side of Maurice Henry. At the Surrealist Museum, the world is reversed: the people chat from inside their frames as the artworks stroll about. While at the Museum of Nerves, it's the guard who is choleric as the gods and goddesses go on their merry Olympian ways. A kick in the derriere only hurts the kicker. To the poet Jacques Prevert, Henry's work was like a stink bomb thrown at the self-important. Maurice Henry (1907-1984) formally joined Andre Breton's group, Surrealists in Service to the Revolution, in 1933. His drawings were regularly published in Le Figaro. Henry often employed the double panel in his work, skewering the obtuse smugness of the bourgeoisie in Charity, Equality, Generosity, and more.
Images by Maurice Henry: Pompidou Center, Paris.
6 comments:
I love these cartoons! So funny...years later
Well, we certainly enjoy *your* generosity in sharing these images! (the guy in the striped pants should take a leap)
Art, don't they look like characters from 'Monopoly'? Henry didn't hesitate to take on fascism, either. Those images may be dated, but they retain their punch.
Jeanne - think bankers, traders, and brokers and the attitudes haven't chamged that much. Although I can't recall seeing anyone in a cutaway and striped pants in my lifetime.
Maurice Henry is definitely one my favourites – thank you for mentioning his work. I also have great sympathy for a little-known Danish artist called Siegfried Cornelius, also known as « Cosper » (1911 –2003) Almost a contemporary to M. Henry … and with a fabulous sense of humour.
http://www.comicsinfo.dk/m%C3%A6rkeligemrmox.htm
http://poparchivesblog.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_archive.html
http://www.weirdspace.dk/MOCO/Alfredo.htm
http://lambiek.net/artists/c/cosper.htm
http://www.tegneseriemuseet.dk/2004/gal%20cosper.htm
There isn’t much on the Internet to remember his work. His daughter, Linda CORNELIUS, an artist working in Milano, has some more info on his father’s editor http://www.sicreasas.com/cornelius/ .
Thank you so much for the links, Anon. Politics does lend itself to surrealistic humor.
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