Jourdain, Francis

Jourdain, Francis 

Born Nov. 2, 1876, in Paris; died there Dec. 31, 1958. French writer and art critic.

Jourdain, whose participation in social activity was prompted by the Dreyfus Affair, joined the Socialist Party in 1911. He was a delegate to the First International Conference of Proletarian and Revolutionary Writers in Moscow in 1927, became a member of the bureau of the Association of Writers and Artists of France on Mar. 17, 1932, and was elected the general secretary of the International Committee of the Struggle Against War and Fascism in 1935. In September 1938, Jourdain, R. Rolland, and P. Langevin called on the French and British governments to prevent an attack by fascist Germany on Czechoslovakia and to preserve peace in Europe. Jourdain joined the Communist Party of France during the Resistance.

Jourdain’s collections of short stories (Luk and Others, 1946) and memoirs (Bom in 1876, 1951; Troubled Days, 1954; and About My Times, 1962) are chronicles of the spiritual life of half a century. Jourdain also wrote the monographs Marquet (1948), Rodin (1949), and Cézanne (1950), as well as the critical studies Impressionism (1953) and Realistic Art, Abstract Art (1955).

WORKS

Faut-il donner des colonies a Hitler. Paris, 1936.
Un Grand Imagier Alexandre Steinlen. Paris [1954].

REFERENCES

Literaturnoe nasledstvo, vol. 81. Moscow, 1969. (See name index.)
Taslitzky, B. “Francis Jourdain.” La Pensée, April, 1964, no. 114.

V. P. BALASHOV