Jacques Dupin

Jacques Dupin (1927–2012) was a French poet, art critic, and editor closely associated with Galerie Maeght and the circle of artists connected to it. Closely involved with the gallery’s publishing program and the journal Derrière le miroir, he later became one of the principal scholars of Alberto Giacometti and Joan Miró, publishing several major studies of their work. A poet by passion, he was also active as a printmaker and book publisher. In 1962, at Atelier Maeght, Miró worked to illustrate the poetry of Yves Bonnefoy, André du Bouchet, and Dupin. Dupin alsoplayed an important role in the later development of Ellsworth Kelly’s career after the artist returned to New York in the 1960s. When Kelly began producing lithographs, Dupin, together with Aimé Maeght, encouraged him to expand the catalogue prepared for his 1964 exhibition at Galerie Maeght, asking him to include several additional original lithographs and to integrate black-and-white forms into the accompanying text.

Joan Mitchell was a close personal friend of Dupin family. In 1975 she “pasteled up” the poems of Jacques Dupin in her renowned series of Poetry Pastels. Poetry Pastels were tokens of affection Mitchell created with and for her closest friends, and their creation was inspired by, and filled with, her memories and reflections on her relationships with the poets. It is unsurprising that Mitchell ended up gifting the majority of the works to her subjects. As Dupin said after receiving a set of drawings in the post from the artist, “I was very touched, very moved, Joan, that you worked on poems of mine – and what you achieved in this series of pastels is truly extraordinary, of such intensity, of such freshness…”