Les Hèritiers 22 Histoires inattendues de Successions d'Artistes by Henri Gourdin

Les Hèritiers

22 Histoires inattendues de Successions d'Artistes by Henri Gourdin released by Grasset is a fascinating book if you love past artists! 

Writers, painters, musicians; this book will help you to understand who kept their legacy alive; who, once these people died, was in grade of enlarge their public, publishing works left behind, searching for good reviews, establishing museums for remembering them.

Who are these connections that throught decades, centuries permitted and still permit the perennial success of these artists? Family members, for sure, but also friends, colleagues, fans, estimators; we will learn that every possible light, in term of a person who do care for the artist passed away, is important.

Divided per periods, the first ones  for the XVI and XVII century are Montaigne, La Fontaine, Marie de Sévigné and Jean-Sebastian Bach. 

In the XIX century we find six writers: Diderot, Germaine de Stael, Alexandre Dumas, George Sand, Gustave Flaubert, Alfonse Daudet.

Then four painters: Cézanne, Monet, Renoir, Matisse, Ravel.

For the last century four artists in Picabia, Fernand Léger, Amedeo "Modi"Modigliani, Chagall, for ending with three writers: Francois Mauriac, André Malraux George Simenon.

You'll read of controvertial relationships, unrecognized children, desire of monetizing with the material  of the dear one passed away, but also of very good families, that without traumas kept alive the legacy of their relative; the one of Bach. 

The legacy of La Fontaine was beauty and interesting; 240 fables invented, the family fought also for the right of author and the literary property; Diderot viceversa didn't leave behind him great quality in terms of family members; the daughter was a selfish one and didn't take care at all the legacy of his father; something that, Diderot had guessed very well in a letter sent to Grimm "Partons, partons vite, et allons oublier bien loin des enfants qui ne valent pas la peine qu'on s'en souvienne."

George Sand loved children and she published many great novels dedicated to them. Solange her daughter spent an unhappy and violent marriage and George Sand complained that after all the daughter didn't present her the same happiness Maurice, her favorite child, donated her. Onde dead, the children for monetizing as quickly as possible, decided to lauch themselves in the correspondence of her mother. Pretty prolific, I have the Folio correspondence with Alfred de Musset "O mon George, ma belle Maitresse" she wrote in total (published ones) 18916 letters. With the time her relatives created also a museum and kept alive, beauty and important the legacy left behind by their dear one. Modigliani,with a turbulent family, several affairs and children not recognized couldn't count on a strong family for his legacy, and in this case there were also big legal problems, although this artist, with frequent art exhibits, a movie horror inspired by his art, many books dedicated to him and the creation of a museum in the italian city where he was born in, Livorno, is very well represented.

A book everyone should keep at home because these artists reveal thanks to the attentive pen of Gourdin  their existence, their characters, errors committed, and more important what remained once gone. Being giants in their field, also the most "controvertial" one remained a myth, but these portraits give us the sense of who these artists were in their existence and how children, wives, and other relatives lived them once they left our world. 

Highly recommended.

I thank Editions Grasset for the physical copy of the book. 

Anna Maria Polidori