Representation of the Imre Pán Estate

Galerie Jocelyn Wolff is delighted to announce the representation of the Estate of a major figure of the European avant-garde: Imre Pán (1904–72).

Imre Pán was an artist and a prolific creator of magazines such as IS (1924) and INDEX (1937), as well as literary and artistic journals linked to the Dadaist and Surrealist avant-garde between 1920 and 1930. He contributed to the MA group’s Dada magazine, launched in 1916 by the Hungarian expressionist writer and painter Lajos Kassák (1887–1967). A film, art and literary critic: Pán had several activities: journalist (the artistic director of Színházi Élet, then of the magazine Sztár, along with many other collaborations), a translator and an exhibition curator. In 1935, he also became the director of a bookshop-gallery—one of the main artistic and intellectual centres of the Hungarian capital until the outbreak of war, and then once again between 1945 and 1948. In 1947, Pán invited the French painter Jacques Doucet, and later the Dutch painter Corneille, to exhibit in his gallery: the two artists founded the CoBra group in Paris. Pán also wrote several theoretical books, alone or in collaboration with Kassák [1], as well as many poems and literary texts, some of which were published by Cahiers du Sud in 1948.

The same period also saw the birth of the European School, which he co-founded with several intellectuals and artists, including his older brother, the philosopher and art theorist Árpád Mezei. As a hub of exchanges and encounters, The European School embraced the diversity of the early twentieth-century European artistic avant-garde, from abstraction to Surrealism, expressionism to constructivism. It organised major exhibitions, such as the one dedicated to Paul Klee in May 1947, published theoretical writings on art, and engaged in dialogue with all cultural forms and practices, open to the new aesthetic influences that were emerging in post-war Western Europe. In 1948, the movement was forced to disband by the Communist regime because of its Western leanings, and the writings of Imre Pán, who was described as a “Western formalist,” was banned until 1953.

Pán left Budapest in 1957 following the repression of the Hungarian uprising and arrived in Paris to carry out his project of founding a magazine: this was the birth of the emblematic art magazines Signe, Morphèmes, and Mini-Musée. From 1960 until his death in 1972, Imre Pán published 145 original editions in close collaboration with the artists, encompassing a wide range of styles and schools from geometric abstraction to informal art, from post-Surrealist figuration to the New Realists. In his own words, Pán was interested in all “art in the making.” These carefully designed editions consist of texts on loose sheets of vellum, often written by Pán himself, accompanied by one or more original works by artists, either multiples (lithograph, screenprint) or unique pieces. His editorial work, marked by his close relationship with artists, reflects the privileged relationships he forged with those whose work he championed, including Marcelle Cahn and Victor Vasarely. Pán played an active role in the Parisian art scene. Alongside his publishing activities, he organised exhibitions in the galleries with which he collaborated in France and abroad.

An editorial and intellectual endeavour and a unique historical collection
Galerie Jocelyn Wolff represents all aspects of Imre Pán’s versatile work as an editor and art critic: the 145 editions he published, numerous manuscripts that make up the corpus of theoretical and literary texts, some of which still remain unpublished, archives and his private collection, which bears witness to his visionary gaze and his passion for small formats and works on paper. This collection reflects a panorama of the European avant-garde, combining abstraction, Surrealism and artistic experimentation. A significant place is given to works by major female figures of the twentieth century. In this collection we see several generations of artists rubbing shoulders, forming a true panorama of European creation of all persuasions. The works in his collection also reveal Pán’s great independence of spirit and his profoundly humanist intellectual and cultural approach.

Homage
This year, we had the honour of presenting an exhibition in homage to Imre Pán at Galerie Jocelyn Wolff in Romainville and at Abraham & Wolff in Paris. Bringing together several hundreds of works, these two lavish exhibitions showcased Imre Pán’s intense publishing activity through 147 artists’ editions in limited editions, as well as part of his historic collection, featuring more than 80 artists from a wide range of backgrounds, accompanied by his personal archives. Beyond shedding light on this major figure, these historic exhibitions also made this precious corpus accessible to research, thereby making a decisive contribution to the history of art.

Imre Pán’s collection, which offers a new perspective on his legacy, lives on through exhibition projects. A selection of works from his collection was shown in the exhibition “Autour de KWY: 1958–1964,” curated by Anne Bonnin, at Abraham & Wolff, Paris, and is currently on display in the exhibition “Transform the world, change life: A Surrealist library,” curated by Emmanuel Tibloux at Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Romainville.

A collaborative vision of art
Galerie Jocelyn Wolff pursues a policy of research aimed at shedding a light onto little-known figures or presenting ambitious group exhibitions, as illustrated by the “Grisaille Vertigo”[2] exhibition, inspired by Warburgian thought, and the current exhibition focusing on the figure of Simone Collinet.[3] We value the collective dynamics at work in artistic creation, far from any individual glorification. Representing the Estate of Imre Pán, an art critic, is part of this approach.

[1] Lajos Kassák, Imre Pán, Ises, Histoire des mouvements artistiques modernes (1956) / [2] Grisaille Vertigo, curated by François-René Martin, Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Romainville, May 14–July 1, 2023.