The Print collector
Honoré Daumier was born the during the First French Empiree as a of Napoleon I. He saw the fall of the Empire and the Restauration of the Bourbons. He saw the final fall of the Bourbons The coming and the going of the House of Orleans, the birth and death of the Second Republic, the beginning and end of the Second Empire and the 70 days of the Paris Commune. He died at the age of 71 as a citizen of the Third Republic.
In his lifetime, war, revolution and enemy occupation were more commonplace than peace. In such a time, Daumier produced 3. 958 lithographs, 300 drawings and 200 paintings-and never ceased to work and fight for human rights and human dignity. As a painter, he was one of the founders of modern art. As a man of courage, he inspired other men-in his time and in later times as well.
As Beethoven died deaf, Daumier died blind. The judgment of posterity was long delayed: "Daumier's painting seems to stand above Time... It is accessible to every age..." "Daumier", by Jacques Lassaigne, Paris and New York, 1938.) He is only one of the great artists of whom this may be said-and the solace and inspiration of their work will be living realities in future centuries as in past centuries, in hard times and in good times. The "print collectors" will survive.
To help bring great art closer to the people, in the troubled days of mid-1950 - days which still await the judgment of history - Unesco has completed and published a catalogue of the finest reproductions available of paintings which cover the five-century span up to 1860.
The Saucepan radio shows "a good chance of new life" by Cyril Ray, the UNESCO Courier, 1950
