JED PERL
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those years ago, "walking back through the unfamiliar dark streets in
a state of high exhilaration."
Jean Helion himself came to Paris to apprentice to an architect
in 1921, when he was seventeen. Six years later he met the great
Uruguayan painter Joaquin Torres-Garcia, whose work made a per–
sonal synthesis of neoplasticism and folk art motifs. It was through
Torres-Garcia that Helion first came into contact with the avant–
garde and got to know Mondrian, van Doesburg, Kandinsky, and
the other abstract artists who were in Paris at the time. He embraced
the cause of abstract art, which was then almost twenty years old,
and became involved in the groups and magazines that were pros–
elytizing for abstraction. From the start Helion had an ability to put
himself right in the middle of the fray, and this characterized his en–
tire career and made for a life dazzling in its connections and rich in
its friendships. In 1930, along with van Doesburg, he founded the
Abstraction-Creation group, which published a magazine, organ–
ized exhibits, and included among its members
Arp
and Robert
Delaunay. The many interviews Helion gave in recent years provide
an invaluable view of the Paris of the early thirties. Helion's
generosity of spirit casts a beautiful glow over all the immortal
names - he recaptures a sense of a shared experience that's rarely
found in the history books:
Kandinsky used to invite everybody to sumptuous tea parties,
which were presided over by Nina Kandinsky. Mondrian always
sat at one end of the table, and at the other sat the youngest and
most unknown of the group, myself. On my right was Arp, on
my left Magnelli, and so on . One day Mme Kandinsky said to
Mondrian, "What's the matter, Mondrian, are you not well?" He
replied, "No, not particularly. I perceive a tree, right behind
Helion. It would have been better if you had let me sit beside
him." Mondrian was such a puritan, at least verbally, that he
simply couldn't bear the liberty of a tree . I had a great respect for
him and liked him very much, but I must say that he was in–
capable of including a tree in his field of comprehension . Kan–
dinsky, by contrast, was already liberated enough to do trees .
Not that he talked about depicting them, but when he showed his
paintings he would remark very proudly, "There are the colors of
nature ." After a trip along the Jordan River he told us that he
had "captured the colors of those beautiful landscapes , those
beautiful deserts." In sum, we all formed a perfect microcosm,
