Kandinsky and Klee in Tunisia

Roger Benjamin is an art historian and field researcher in the very best sense. Thanks to his intense study of sources in archives, libraries, and museums, he counts among the most profound experts on the material in his field. Benjamin's work not only provides us with a wealth of new knowledge but also helps us better understand the significance that Islamic culture and art held in the paintings of Kandinsky and Klee.-Michael Baumgartner, Head of Collection/Exhibitions/Research, Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern Roger Benjamin's study makes us examine again-indeed, in many cases, for the first time-not just those works specific to Kandinsky's and Klee's respective journeys to Tunisia but the lessons of those experiences and cultural encounters for modernist aesthetics as a whole.-Luke Gartlan, Lecturer in Art History, University of St Andrews, Scotland Benjamin's work is fascinating for an anthropologist of the Maghreb because his modest task (one carried out with prodigious erudition) is to gather the sum total of evidence on the conditions under which these excursions to Tunisia took place. His novel kind of postcolonial fieldwork, enriched with photographic documents, presents a persuasive new vision of art history.-François Pouillon, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris