This piece clipped back in August 2023 reminded me of my youthful infatuation with the School of Paris, which included the Delaunays, Sonia and Robert, as well as Fernand Léger. The article’s appeal lies as well in the matchup of poetry and painting that it treats of. My title is the title of the show held at the Morgan Library & Museum. Jason Farago describes it as “a concentrated pop of free-spirited trans-Atlantic modernity, alive with rich color and typographical pyrotechnics.”

I did not know that Blaise Cendrars was Swiss, not French, nor that he was born Frédéric-Louis Sauser. He lost his right arm in the Second Battle of Champagne in 1915. Convalescing, he taught himself to write with his left hand and proceeded to engage in other landmark collaborations with 20th-century artists. It hits home when Farago says Cendrars was a writer “who saw his time disrupted and disrupted his style in turn, and who models today how to live up to upheaval [my bolding].”

(Jason Farago, “Blaise Cendrars at the Morgan: A Modern Match of Poetry and Painting,” New York Times, 8-3-23)

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