Verve: The Ultimate Review of Art and Literature (1937-1960)

An irresistible cornucopia of images, this oversized album reproduces excerpts from all 38 issues of what one of its backers called ``the most beautiful magazine on earth.'' Verve was launched in 1937 by a Greek ex-law student in Paris, Teriade (whose real name was Efstratios Eleftheriades). Anthonioz, a director of the National Audiovisual Institute of Paris, examines Teriade's pre- Verve collaboration with art publisher Albert Skira, then follows the financially troubled magazine's history through its demise in 1960. Teriade reveled in theme issues: the human figure, war, the Orient, Chagall's illustrated Bible. In so doing, he forced modernism and classical equilibrium into dynamic collisions. Alongside art by Braque, Picasso, Bonnard, Matisse, Kandinsky, Miro, Giacometti, Leger and Masson, we find medieval manuscript illuminations, old Japanese photos, essays by Gide, Camus, Malraux, Henri Michaux, James Joyce, Pierre Reverdy. So much brilliance dazzles. (October)