Yesterday in the late afternoon, during a small and very festive ceremony set in a friendly atmosphere among friends, Laure Matarasso, daughter and heir of Jacques Matarasso, signed the second volume of the book co-written by herself and Alain Amiel, prefaced by Jean Mas and with an afterword by Marcel Alocco.
The first volume of Jacques Matarasso’s Memoirs took us through the Paris of the Surrealists. His “unexpected” encounters had names like Prévert, Picasso, Éluard, Tzara, Breton, Aragon, etc.
His bookstore on Rue de Seine had become a place for meetings, exchanges, and the sale of very precious works, fruits of the friendship between poets and painters. The war then led him to Nice where he settled and created his famous bookstore on Rue Longchamp.
A bookstore which, in turn, saw the passage of Arman, Farhi, Gilli, Klein, Sosno, Venet, artists who became his friends. This volume recounts the years from the 50s to the 90s, which saw the development and recognition of the “School of Nice.”
Jacques did not abandon books for all that, and today he is recognized as one of the finest French bibliophiles. He is also a memory of the rich activity and effervescence of our region.
It is this memory that the book aims to recall.
