Fénéon (Félix) - Lot 26

Fénéon (Félix) The Impressionists in 1886. Publications de la Vogue, Paris, 1886. First edition (22.2 x 13.5 cm). "To Émile Zola, in Manet": a brief but stunning dispatch on the seminal critical work of the fin de siècle, when Fénéon coined the term "Neo-Impressionism". Binding: Soft full brown morocco signed Loutrel. Copy on Saint-Omer (no. 67/199, after six japon, twenty-one hollande, and one on "pumicif") with this shock dispatch to Émile Zola: "Ce [N° 67] à Émile Zola, en Manet F." Fénéon has corrected in blue pencil the hyphen between his first name and surname on the title page. Fénéon, the first defender of the Neo-Impressionists, addresses his elder as one of the first defenders, twenty years earlier, of the painter of modernity and master of an entire generation, Édouard Manet, who had just died in 1883: "En Manet"... Indeed, the gift of the copy and the dedication should be interpreted in a fusional, quasi-mystical sense. Moreover, as this is Fénéon's only booklet, his consignments are particularly unusual. This booklet brings together, considerably revised, articles by Fénéon on the VIIIth Impressionist Exhibition and two other exhibitions of 1886: the Vth International Exhibition and the IInd Exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants. The title page announces: "MM. Degas, Camille Pissarro, Miss Cassatt, Madame Morisot, MM. Caillebotte, Dubois-Pillet, David Estoppey, Forain, Gauguin, Guillaumin, Claude Monet, Lucien Pissarro, Raffaelli, Renoir, Seurat, Signac, Angrand, Zandomeneghi". The text is in fact mainly devoted to the advent of the pointillists, with Fénéon coining the term "neo-impressionism" to describe the color division technique of Seurat, Signac, Pissarro, Angrand and Dubois-Pillet. Although Félix Fénéon (1861-1944) was a tireless contributor to the literary and artistic journals of the time, the present book is the only one he published, as Seurat considered it the best presentation of his ideas in painting. This true manifesto of Neo-Impressionism remains one of the founding texts of modern art. Provenance: Émile Zola; Bibliothèque Maurice Saillet, Drouot / Renaud, May 29, 1989, no. 130; De la Bibliothèque Stéphane Mallarmé, Sotheby's, Paris, October 15, 2015, no. 36; Librairie Michel Scognamillo, Paris, Livres Anciens catalog, 2016, no. 44.