Jean Fremon – författare

Progressing by image and word associations, Fremon evokes Bourgeois's history and inner life, bringing a sense of fascinating and moving proximity to the internationally renowned artist... The art world's grande dame and its shameless old lady, who spun personal history into works of profound strangeness, speaks out with her characteristic insolence and wit, and comes to vibrant life again through the words of a most discrete, masterful writer. From her childhood in France to her exile and life in America, to her death; her relationships to her family and her young assistant, her views on landmark male artists, the genesis of her own work... through the moods, barbs, resentments, reservations and back, at full speed - this is a phosphorescent account of Bourgeois's life, as could only be captured by the imagination of one artist regarding another.

'Fruit cocktails that do not arrive; rickshaws with no passengers; […] the absent body of the crucified from the Isenheim Altarpiece in David Hockney’s painting; a trip, an insomnia; a country where time is different…'In this dreamlike novella, in the bewitching melancholy of nocturnal India, an art dealer pursues the goddess of the void. La Deesse du vide was first published in Rue du Regard (P.O.L editeur, 2012). The present publication is a bilingual edition, comprising a new translation in English and a revised version in French.

'Portrait Tales offers a compelling series of behind-the-scenes stories about both well-known and little-known masterly portraits from world art history and, therefore, about the famous or unduly forgotten or neglected artists who painted them. Jean Fremon enables us to look both behind and, not least, into the 'magic mirrors', as he phrases it in his French title, with which artists paint their own self-portraits. To tell his tales, he uses a colourful palette of phenomena related to how portraits are made and to how people pose for them; he highlights not only the painterly but also the psychological, sociological and political backgrounds informing the artist and the model.' (John Taylor, from the preface)

Studded with five gouache drawings by Louise Bourgeois, this erudite, witty fable by the acclaimed author of Now, Now, Louison (2018) considers the ambiguous figure of the baby Jesus and its representation in the artistic canon.' 'One day in 2007,' recalls Jean Fremon about a visit to artist Louise Bourgeois's studio, 'I discovered an entirely new series of drawings.... silhouettes of women with embryos in their wombs, drawn with a brush full of water and red gouache. These drawings were, for me, the most poignant of her long career.'

From 1998 to 2017, Jean Fremon visited David Hockney in his studio in Los Angeles, Bridlington and London. Intimate observation mingled with spirited conversation, a tableau of vision, meditation, and passion for invention.Jean Fremon's poetry, fiction, and art criticism have appeared in more than 20 volumes. He is the President of the Galerie Lelong in Paris. This book is translated from the French, David Hockney a l'atelier (L'Echoppe, 2017).

Visiting Normandy in October 2018, on a whim David Hockney decided to settle in Pays d'Auge. Confined to his house during the 2020 lockdown, on canvas, paper, and iPad, he dialogued with the trees in his garden, the moon, and the rain. Hockney's life and work during this time have been portrayed by his friend and neighbour, the gallerist Jean Fremon. Thanks to this portrait of an artist, we witness the Arrival of Spring.This book is translated from David Hockney en Pays d'Auge (L'Echoppe, 2020).