CASSANDRE by Roland Mouron, Estate of A.M.CASSANDRE
A.M.CASSANDRE BY ROLAND MOURON
A.M.CASSANDRE
AT THE TOP OF THE BILL
ACT 2 (1935-1938)​
THE QUIET FORCE
Dubbed " the first street scene director " Cassandre became the emblem of an era.
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At this time, the graphic designer was at his peak. Enjoying comfortable income, he lived surrounded by elegant creatures resembling goddesses.​The difficult month-ends of his early career were now a distant memory, and his aura garnered the interest of one of the French industrial jewels. In 1935, the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique planned to make a significant impact with the construction of the largest ocean liner of all time. Named the Normandie, this steel behemoth, fresh from the Saint-Nazaire shipyards, awaited its audience. The ship was defined not only by its enormous capacity but also by its speed, the refinement of its facilities, and the modernity of its design.But how to synthesize in a single image the comfort of a luxurious journey, the elegance of a ship, and the conquering spirit of the new sea giant ?
Cassandre had the solution: "It is necessary to rethink the scale of the object in relation to the fictitious space that constrains it: the overproportion." Once again, he managed to blend graphically and semantically incompatible values and, as usual, his proposal transcended the advertising message. By depicting the ship from the front in a low-angle shot, the artist once again borrowed from cinematic language. But, by containing his subject within a tight frame to exalt its power and miniaturizing the decorative elements to emphasize its gigantism, the man on the street is immediately propelled into the open sea, aboard a ship at the cutting edge of progress.
The floating fortress, advancing calmly but surely, cutting through the waters with the tricolor flag on the railing, resonated as a vigorous response to the storm that was soon to shake France.
In the spring of 1936, a strike that began in the factories spread across all sectors of activity. Workers felt emboldened. Within a few weeks, the country was paralyzed. At the Galeries Lafayette, Cassandre’s advertising posters had been replaced by signs demanding "bread, peace, and freedom," hung by employees who occupied their workplace to the sound of the accordion. A wave of jubilation swept through the streets of Paris. Freshly elected, the Popular Front opened a bracket of hope after the hardships and deprivations of the economic crisis. But Cassandre was far removed from these upheavals. His reputation had crossed the Atlantic; so much so that the MoMA, the prestigious New York museum, planned to dedicate an exhibition to him. At 35, he was the first graphic designer in the world to be celebrated in his lifetime, and he intended to savor this glory on-site. Orphaned by Moyrand, Cassandre met Balthus in 1935, who would become a close friend. " It was the association with Balthus that revived the demon of painting that advertising had lulled to sleep in him," Lola Saalburg noted.​​​
THE AMERICAN DREAM
Major art, painting, against minor art, advertising—it is in the United States, in New York, that he takes up painting again, relentlessly, but without the slightest inspiration that might have been stirred by the strange universe of Balthus, and thus without success, despite a deep admiration for Poussin, the Le Nain brothers, Courbet, and his contemporaries: Dunoyer de Segonzac and Derain.​Aboard the ocean liner of all superlatives which he had so effectively promoted, Cassandre embarks for the New World. After weeks of travel, America finally comes into view. Barely disembarked, the director of the Ayer Agency rolls out the red carpet for him. Legend has it he was greeted by his representative with a contract ready to be signed. A few days later, the climax occurs.​At the Museum of Modern Art, the Frenchman is honored alongside Malevich, Van Gogh, and Picasso. The appeal of the Dubonnet character to the public is even compared to the frenzy caused by Mickey Mouse! This renown allows him to join the New York elite. There he meets Giorgio De Chirico, Salvador Dali, and the great designer Raymond Loewy before reconnecting with an old acquaintance: Alexey Brodovitch, the former artistic director of the Parisian store Aux Trois Quartiers.
Giorgio De Chirico & Cassandre
A fervent admirer of the combinations of images and typography that made Cassandre successful, Brodovitch, now at the helm of Harper's Bazaar, offers him nothing less than its emblem: its cover. For Cassandre, collaborating with this now legendary fashion institution presents a golden opportunity. Not only financially, but it also provides him the chance to pivot his career. Up until then, graphic design had been merely a means to an end for him, and he dreams of devoting himself to his true passion: painting.​
From abstraction to social realism and through regionalism, America at that time was a vibrant hub of creation from which he planned to draw inspiration. Major art, painting, versus minor art, advertising—he resumes painting with determination but without the inspiration that might have been kindled by the strange universe of Balthus, and thus without success, despite deep admiration for Poussin, the Le Nain brothers, Courbet, and his contemporaries: Dunoyer de Segonzac and Derain. To his great regret, while his graphic creations demonstrate undeniable genius, his pictorial experiments have not lived up to his expectations. Most of his paintings ended up in the trash, victims of his dissatisfaction, while the most accomplished ones turned out as dark as his character.
​​​​​​​​ FALLEN FROM A CLOUD
Sailing from high-society dinners to festive evenings, Cassandre expanded his network in search of a mentor who could guide his brushstrokes. A quest that would soon prove fruitless, and in the absence of finding his master, he set off to seek the spark he was missing in the world-city unfolding before him. On Broadway, music halls, cinemas, and concert venues jostled for attention.​Everywhere, massive neon signs, billboards, and placards clad the facades of buildings like giant wallpaper. They were impossible to miss. These were not mere advertisements; they were veritable invitations to share a lifestyle. True allegories of mass consumption, they touted the latest radio sets, the newest Kodak devices, the latest trendy car, or packs of Lucky Strike cigarettes, giving their happy owners the illusion of ever-renewed wealth.
Throughout his wanderings, Cassandre observed and synthesized. Scenting the zeitgeist, he absorbed this suggestive world that rested not on the features of a product but on the construction of an identity. Then, the automotive giant Ford offered to employ his services.​
At the crossroads of Times Square, the Ford T cars rushing toward the pulsating heart of Manhattan formed a stunning ballet. In just two decades, the company had become an industrial behemoth. Symbol of independence and success, the car itself embodied the American dream. Particularly, the V8 model, previously reserved for luxury vehicles, which the manufacturer had just adapted for mass production. To promote this little gem of technology, Cassandre was given free rein. The Frenchman made a risky bet. Instead of depicting the vehicle, he chose to stage the desire it aroused in consumers.​
This metaphor, personified by an eye, is magnified in a close-up, blending figuration and surrealism. Behind the iris, a slogan appears that suggests motion—" Watch the Ford go by "—while the image of the car, printed on the pupil, suggests the fusion of mind, body, and technology. " A poster is made to be SEEN. Trivial perhaps, but if it doesn’t possess this virtue of visibility above all, its qualities are of no use. This visibility depends not merely on a simple contrast of colors but rather on a relationship of values, heightened by a clash of forms, a formal incident. " However, if this new creation revolutionized the world of graphic art at the time, it faced a dismal commercial failure. Too avant-garde, this immense eye, from which Cassandre expected, when installed by the roadside, to produce the surprise effect intended to convince the motorist to stop at the nearest Ford dealership, was snubbed by the public and the flop was resounding.
Shaken by the failure, worn out by high-society dinners, he returns to Paris to lick his wounds, and his American experience ends in profound disappointment. But the International Exposition of Arts and Techniques of 1937 comes just in time to bolster his ego. His works are prominently honored there. The Normandie, his masterpiece, stands majestically in the French pavilion. Just like his latest creation: the Peignot typeface, celebrated as the emblem of French graphic creation and featured on the brand new facade of the Palais de Chaillot built for the occasion.​The event achieves significant critical success, but his new typography proves to be a failure. Faced with publishers' refusal to market it, the artist’s morale collapses.
Disillusioned, after years in advertising, Cassandre feels betrayed. He realizes that ultimately, his work is considered a mere tool of propaganda for private interests and distances himself from the sector that made him a star.Bitter, he writes: " If today I have gradually abandoned advertising, it is because I was ulcerated by this constant confusion of values. And I give up what I once believed, that is to say, that one could use the crude means of the poster to reach the deepest fibers of the viewer, touch him in his sensitive and emotional life, awaken his intellectuality. That was perhaps too much to ask. "
Advertising Pavilion of the Arts and Techniques Exhibition in Paris, 1937​
​​On a personal level, the situation is no more cheerful. Cassandre continues to live lavishly, and money is starting to run painfully short. He admits, "Alas, I must think about stabilizing my finances and settling the debts of my past. "
His financial difficulties begin to strain his marriage. Gradually, his increasingly violent bouts of nervous breakdowns lead his wife to leave him. Losing his bearings, he then retreats entirely into painting, supported by his friend Balthus. However, his various attempts reflect none of the innovative character that permeated his earlier work. He locks himself in his studio, which becomes a battlefield where all attempts that do not meet his approval are systematically destroyed.
A premonitory obsession that foreshadows many more battles. For already, Germany is intensifying its warlike rhetoric, and rumors of war are spreading: the days of peace are numbered. And then war begins in early September 1939 ! With no fixed abode or specific project, Cassandre enlists in the army : not to question his patriotism, but also as a way to escape his daily turmoil.​
Nude Woman Portrait 1941
Portrait of Henri Mouron 1942
Self-Portrait 1942
© ROLAND MOURON - AM.CASSANDRE