On Tuesday, December 20, PIASA is organizing a sale titled Editions, featuring prints, illustrated books, and more.
Bookseller and publisher, Gérald Cramer (1916-1991) produced some of the most important artists' books of his time. He settled in Geneva in 1943, where he very quickly began designing and publishing rare and precious books with his favorite artists. Already recognized as an expert in rare books, Gérald Cramer published catalogs which he soon had embellished with prints by artist friends. He soon met Picasso through collector Jean Masurel, after which Picasso dedicated to Cramer an engraved plate illustrating "To Pablo Picasso", a tribute text by Paul Eluard. Passionate, Cramer knew that he had to his work as a publisher by publishing books illustrated with original plates. This would lead to many works carried out by artists like Louis Jou or Valentine Hugo. At the same time, Cramer was publishing prints by Dunoyer de Segonzac, Braque, and Picasso.
Pablo Picasso
"Characters", 1966
Estimate: 15000 / 20000 €
One project followed another and the reputation of his company went international. In 1951, in his new gallery, he exhibited xylographs by Gauguin, as well as sculpted and printed works by Degas and Matisse. This was followed by exhibitions of works by Chagall, Klee, Rouault, Zao Wou-ki, Villon, Matisse, Picasso, Marini, Léger, Buffet, Le Corbusier, Masson, Moore, Giacometti, Dine, and Miró.
In 1966, at the age of 50, Gérald Cramer celebrated his twenty-five-year career by publishing an album of previously unpublished prints by the most important artists he had exhibited or edited and with whom he had established a friendly relationship. In the album, he first addressed Pablo Picasso, probably in memory of his first book published in 1945 and the plate that the artist had then granted him. Of course, Picasso's support for the project inevitably led to the consensus of most of the other artists contacted: Calder, Chadwick, Chagall, Dunoyer de Segonzac, Ernst, Marini, Masson, Miró, Moore, Siqueiros, and Zao Wou-Ki. But instead of a print, Calder suggested to Cramer that he make an iron clasp using his initials "GC".
Alexandre Calder
G.C. clasp, slightly mobile, 1968
Estimate: 15000 / 20000 €
The album also included four catalog covers by Arp, Braque, Matisse, and Villon, late artists who all contributed to the success of the Geneva-based publisher. The making of the cover proved to be more laborious than expected, and the album published in 1971 finally consecrated Gérald Cramer's thirty years of activity.
In 1984, to mark the culmination of his career, he published Forty-two Years of Activity. As for the 1971 portfolio, Arnold Kohler signs the preface where he celebrates the career of his friend Gérald: "Rarely has the career of art editor and gallery director been accomplished with such firmness in the choices and happiness in the achievements: thanks to him, by him, the most vivacious art of the 20th century has been served and developed. For it is a constitutive part of this art that was not only revealed but also generated by his initiatives".
Henri Matisse
"Mermaid", 1952
Estimate: 15000 / 20000 €
The Geneva gallery owner and bookseller went into retirement in 1987, after a long and beautiful life of friendships, exhibitions, and editions. He created a foundation in his name and donated almost all the prints and illustrated books he published during his career to the Cabinet des estampes (now the Cabinet d'arts graphiques) of the Art and History Museum of Geneva.
