The first edition of the catalogue raisonné of the paintings of Juan Gris was published in Paris in 1977, in a limited edition of 800 copies. It has been out of print for a number of years and the publisher of this publication obtained permission from the heirs of the original publisher, Heinz Berggruen and from the successor in interest to the author, the J. Paul Getty Trust, for this second edition. Douglas Cooper (1911-1984) worked on the Gris project for forty years, beginning in 1937. Cooper´s passion was Cubism, and his catalogue of Juan Gris is his major scholarly achievement. At age 21 in 1932 Cooper inherited a modest fortune which allowed him to collect and live as he wished. The early 1930s was a time when the Nazis were forcing Jewish collectors to flee and cash was king. Cooper made the acquaintance of the German-Swiss collector G.F. Reber and his mistress-client Ingeborg Eichmann, who had extensive Cubist collections and connections to other collectors. Cooper was able to purchase works from them to start his own collection. Although Cooper subsequently became a friend, collector and collaborator of the major 20th Century French Cubist masters Picasso, Braque and Léger, he never met Juan Gris, who died in 1927, when Cooper was still a teenager in England.
Cooper catalogued and reproduced 620 paintings by Juan Gris in the catalogue raisonné. In addition, he catalogued a couple of hundred related works. His catalogue includes the three pillars that tell the life of each work being described: its owners (PROV.); its exhibition history (EXP.); and its appearance in publications (LIT.). Each catalogue entry also includes the title in French and English; the dimensions in cm. and inches; the medium and support (normally canvas or panel); signatures, dates and annotations on the work. The catalogue also includes indexes of titles and provenance; illustrations of exhibitions and works for the theaters; a chronology of the artist´s life and exhibitions of his work; a bibliography; photographs of the artist and his circle and a survey of his work. There is also an instructive section on fakes. In the first edition all of the above is in French and the works at each catalogue entry are reproduced in black and white.
Second Edition. Two Volumes. 512, 552 pages.