In 1940, as darkness fell across Europe, Louis Marcoussis created his final artistic seriesÑportraits of friends and family reimagined as diviners and fortune tellers. As a Polish-French Jewish artist working in Paris just as Nazi occupation began, Marcoussis faced an unimaginably precarious future. That he chose to spend his final creative energies depicting loved ones as people who could pierce the veil of time carries profound emotional weight.
This book resurrects Marcoussis's unrealized vision, pairing his illustrations with carefully selected period texts on divination practices. We have assembled writings that might have been found in the home library of a wealthy collector of arcanaÑtexts that Marcoussis himself could have consulted while creating these works. From ancient cleromancy to the modern sŽance, these sources span centuries of humanity's attempts to glimpse what lies ahead.
Set in the elegant Firmin Didot typeface and following the same format as Marcoussis's 1936 "Theatrical Etchings," this volume recreates not just what could have been, but what should have beenÑa book that honors both the artist's final creative vision and the enduring human desire to make sense of uncertain futures.
Across decades and centuries, Marcoussis's diviners speak to our own uncertain times, reminding us of humanity's enduring quest to understand what lies ahead.