Marta Pan (Inscribed to Dore Ashton)

First edition monograph on the work of artist Marta Pan, published in 1974 by Editions SMI, with text in French by Michel Ragon. Pan (1924-2008), a French sculptor of Hungarian extraction, is known for her floating sculptures and her site-specific architectural and environmental works. Early influences included Brancusi, Leger, and especially Le Corbusier—her husband, whom she married in 1952, was one of Corbusier’s studio assistants. Her work up until 1960 consisted primarily of sculptures composed of two interlocking but movable parts, allowing the work to be altered in use; these, along with her later refractive sculptures in plexiglas and her floating sculptures, locate Pan in the kinetic art movement. The book is divided into four sections, with descriptive titles: charniers, mouvement, equilibre, puzzles (hinges, movement, balance, puzzles); sculpture et architecture; sculptures en plexiglas; and dynamisme, geometric, sensuality, purisme. 4to, hardcover, 118 pages, fully illustrated in both color and black-and-white. With a warm inscription on the half-title page to the noted art historian and critic Dore Ashton and her first husband, the artist Adja Yunkers. From the collection of Dore Ashton. Mild rubbing and slight bowing to boards. Light bumping and chipping to extremities.