Rustic Cubism
Anne Dangar and the Art Colony at Moly-Sabata
In part a gripping biography of this Australian expatriate, Rustic Cubism chronicles Dangar's personal battles and the tumult of the World War II era during her tempestuous tenure at Moly-Sabata. Dangar dedicated herself to the colony's aims by working in the region's village potteries, combining their vernacular elements with Gleizes' design methods to arrive at a type of rustic Cubism. Her work there would ultimately be rewarded; her pieces can today be found in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche in Faenza, the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, and many other museums.
Rustic Cubism places Dangar at the heart of Moly-Sabata's alternative art movement—one that, in its nostalgic present, attempted to construct a culture based on the distant past. Generously illustrated with photographs of the art and social milieu of the period, this captivating and original narrative makes a considerable contribution to our understanding of French modernism and early twentieth-century cultural politics as well as of the life of a most talented and intriguing female artist.
New South Wales Ministry for the Arts: New South Wales History Awards
Short Listed
“This is local art history writing at its richest—at once subtle and simple. It is the story—carefully told and published with care—of an Australian woman’s steady devotion to the idea that manual work at art can create place, and do so in rural France, a long way from home. Her pioneering persistence outlasts local obduracy, the hypocrisy of her mentors, and the exigencies of war to achieve, ultimately, a raw, plain state of grace. Adams gives us the art historical equivalent of the novels of Frank Moorhouse and Drusilla Modjeska and a rare insight into the densely populated, artistically significant, and too often bypassed localities of provincial modernism.”--Terry Smith, author of Making the Modern: Industry, Art, and Design in America
“Adams’s book constitutes a highly original contribution to the literature on French modernism and gives us the most complete account of Dangar’s work to date. This text will be essential reading for anyone interested in the complex cultural politics of interwar France.”--Mark Antliff, coauthor of Inventing Bergson: Cultural Politics and the Parisian Avant-Garde
“This book is a beautifully illustrated tribute to one of the great unsung heroic figures of the twentieth century. A very impressive piece of research that goes into the fine details of what was often a difficult and lonely life. Happily, Anne Dangar’s works are here in abundance to testify to the strength and truth of the ideas she defended and her eventual triumph over all difficulties.”--Peter Brooke, author of Albert Gleizes: For and Against the Twentieth Century
"This book will make Dangar's beliefs and work more available to 20th-century art historians and to those interested in understanding the cultural cross-currents of industry and nature, precedent and revolution, and mechanization and handiwork that combine to influence various modern art forms.This is an important revelation of one woman's contribution to modernism."
“It is against the backdrop of this sorry relationship that Bruce Adams has written his remarkable book. . . . Adams handles all these matters with patience and delicacy. When combined with the numerous images of Dangar’s beautiful pottery, this scholarly yet approachable study amounts to the most complete account to this point of a remarkable figure . . .”--Bookforum
Acknowledgments
Note on Sources
Abbreviations
Introduction: The Potter's Story
Part One: Beginnings
1. Anne Dangar's Formative Years in Sydney and Paris
2. The Generative Influences upon Albert Gleizes' Plans for Moly-Sabata
3. The Foundation and Early Years of Moly-Sabata
Part Two: Growth
4. The Spiral & the Circle: Lessons on Spirituality, Form and Place
5. The Life of a Village Potter
6. Politics and Folklore in the 1930s
Part Three: Transformation
7. Morocco and the Outbreak of War
8. Conflict and Collaboration: The War Years at Moly-Sabata
Part Four: Renewal
9. Postwar Populism: Anne Dangar's "Return to France"
10. Cubism and Religion
11. Catholicism and Identity: Anne Dangar's Last Years
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
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