[Arp (Hans)] - Lot 62

[Arp (Hans)] Ɵ Moderner Bund. Zweite Ausstellung. Kunsthaus, Zurich, 1912. First edition of 200 copies of this catalog ("Erster Heft [first notebook] des Modernen Bund") with original woodcuts by Hans Arp and Walter Helbig, and laminated reproductions by Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Robert Delaunay, Henri Le Fauconnier, Wilhelm Gimmi, Richard Goldensohn, Hermann Huber, and Emil Sprenger. Title page designed by Oskar Lüthy, vignettes by Hans Arp and Oskar Lüthy, red embossed paper cover (one corner missing) with original woodcut by Walter Helbig applied (33.5 x 25 cm). Box by Devauchelle. Sonia Delaunay's copy of the very rare catalog of what appears to have been the very first avant-garde exhibition ever held in a museum, exceptionally signed by organizers Hans Arp, Oskar Lüthy and Walter Helbig, with original woodcuts, including the very first woodcut by Hans Arp in a very first printing (self-portrait, a print of which was added a few years later in the deluxe copies of Dada 1 in 1916). The copy came from Sonia Delaunay ("Expl. Madame Sonia Delaunay-Terk"), who probably accompanied her husband Robert Delaunay to this exhibition, to which he contributed. The copies were not signed, but exceptionally in this copy, the signature of the founders-organizers Helbig-Arp-Lüthy appears at the bottom of the title page drawn by Lüthy. In addition to the artists whose works are reproduced in the catalog, the exhibition also featured works by Henri Matisse, Cuno Amiet, Giovanni Giacometti (spelled "Giacommetti"), Gabriele Münter (spelled "D. Münter") and Vladimir Baranov-Rossiné, among others. The catalog voucher announced copies for passive members with a colored woodcut and two signed colored reproductions, but it is not known whether these were ever produced. The advertised print run was 200 copies, but only a few appear to have survived. The Moderner Bund was founded in 1911 by Hans Arp, Walter Helbig and Oskar Lüthy in Lucerne, to promote young avant-garde artists. They quickly established ties with the Blaue Reiter artists, notably Kandinsky and Marc. Arp published several drawings in the Almanach du Blaue Reiter. He had moved to Weggis in Switzerland with his family, and worked in a certain solitude interrupted only by short trips to Paris. Also in contact with Herwarth Walden and his magazine Der Sturm in Munich, he was commissioned by him to organize exhibitions in Berlin. Among Zurich's early Dadaists, these exchanges made him by 1916 the most aware of developments in modern art. The Moderner Bund held its first exhibition in 1911 at the Grand Hotel du Lac in Lucerne, with the main catalog appearing at the 1912 exhibition at the Kunsthaus in Zurich. Here, Arp, Helbig and Lüthy achieved the feat of organizing the first avant-garde exhibition in a museum. Alongside vignettes by Arp and Lüthy and original woodcuts by Helbig, the present catalog contains Arp's very first woodcut, a self-portrait that was later included in deluxe copies of Dada 1 in 1916. Provenance: Sonia Delaunay; Maurice Bridel.