Author(s): Jean Fremon (translated by John Taylor)

Art | Fiction | Translated fiction | France | Les Fugitives

‘As far back as Plotinus, who warned against that ugly custom of leaving an image of one’s appearance behind us, we have ceaselessly given ourselves over to the urge to parry death with the image.’ - Jean Frémon

Fables, memories, things he’s read, things he’s seen, transposed or made up, the stories gathered in this slim volume have the portrait, portraitists and the portraitees as common themes. Frémon takes the reader around the world, hopping through art history, as facts and personal memories are retold with imaginative flair for the telling detail: from an impossible portrait of Jesus in 50 AD, which somehow brings J.L. Godard into the picture, to the 14th c. Ottoman Empire, to China’s Qing Dynasty, the Italian Renaissance, French Rococo, and Louise Bourgeois’s mirrors, these historiettes expound the paradoxes, the necessity, and the dangers of seeking truthfulness in art. With gentle but unmistakable irony, they highlight the intricate connexion between art and power.

‘Jean Frémon is a wholly singular artist, a writer who lives in the radiant zone where poetry, philosophy and storytelling meet.’ – Paul Auster

Jean Frémon’s imaginary diary of Louise Bourgeois Now, Now, Louison (trans. Cole Swensen, 2019) was published to critical acclaim, and translated into several languages. Nativity (2020), with ink drawings by Bourgeois, represents a different facet in Frémon’s ample body of work, multiplied here in Portrait Tales.

Paperback with French reverse flaps and lilac endpapers

 'An antidote to our epileptic times, Jean Fremon's parlance makes the description of art into an art of description, rescued from today's focus on current affairs [...] I only need to read a few pages of Jean Fremon's work to feel comforted - and, even better, to be persuaded that the most revolutionary form of art is figurative.' - Damien Aubel, Transfuge;

'Jean Fremon loves telling stories: stories about painters, stories about paintings; and he does this with finesse and style. A learned, Proustian writer, [Fremon] handles ekphrasis - the art of describing a painting - with subtle precision, in stories leading to meditations on art.' - Le Journal des Arts;

'Jean Fremon is the ideal dinner guest: for his sparkling wit paired with a keen intelligence and sensitivity. Sprinkled with amusing or unexpected anecdotes and illuminating comparisons that span art history, each story is a picture in a rich portrait gallery. Matisse concluded tersely that "a portrait is a quarrel". The ones which Jean Fremon provides here prove him wrong, serving us up a feast with brio.' - La Croix