André BRETON

Unpublished, handwritten, signed letter from André Breton addressed to critic Charles Estienne; one page and a few lines in black ink on a paper from the à l'étoile scellée gallery.
Two transverse folds from having been sent, a small corner missing in the upper right margin.
Very beautiful letter giving an account of the death of one of André Breton's dearest friends and of his quarrel with Albert Camus.
Breton tells his friend about the death of the Surrealist Czech artist Jindřich Heisler: “Your letter spoke of those days where it seemed “that there was only just enough fire to live”: on Monday there was far from enough fire, when it reached me: one of my two or three best friends, Heisler, taken suddenly unwell on his way to mine on Saturday, had to be hospitalised urgently and I had just received the pneumatic from Bichat telling me of his death. The event, no less inconceivable than accomplished, left me distraught for a long time: there was no-one more exquisite than he, putting more warmth into everything he did, the most constant of which was to lighten and embellish those whom he loved.” The two poets were indeed very close: Heisler participated, alongside Breton, in the launch of Néon in 1948 and supported him during a period of depression, accompanying him with other friends to the Île de Sein. “The beginning of 1953 was overshadowed by the death of Jindřich Heisler (4 January). Loyal among the faithful, he “lived entirely for Surrealism” according to Breton, who pays tribute to his activity as a leader: “This is how he was between 1948 and 1950, the soul of Néon, and until his last moments the greatest bearer of projects that, as if by magic, his talent gave him the means to achieve.”” (Henri Béhar, André Breton)

Handwritten postcard from André Breton signed by himself, his wife Elisa, Benjamin Péret, Toyen and Jindřich Heisler addressed to Marcel Jean and his wife and written on the back of a black and white photograph view of the Chaise-du-Curé rocks on the Île de Sein (Finistère).
Charming poetic postcard, written during a stay in Brittany: "la corne de brume manque à tous ses devoirs quoique le coupage au couteau soit de règle. Dans la vase à quoi se limite la vue de l'hôtel de l'Océan un bateau penché dit son nom : "Rose effeuillée". Rien de moins. Mais c'est toujours très bien dans l'ensemble." Returning to more “professional” discussions, Breton asks for news of the American gallery owner Sidney Janis: “What was the result of the Janis' visit?”

First edition of this magazine led by Ivan Goll, uniting French surrealists then in exile in the United States with their American peers.
Several contributions including those from Saint-John Perse, Roger Caillois, William Carlos Williams, Alain Bosquet, Ivan Goll, André Breton, Aimé Césaire, André Masson, Henry Miller, Kurt Seligmann, Denis de Rougemont, Julien Gracq, Eugène Guillevic, Robert Lebel...
Illustrations by George Barker, André Masson, Wifredo Lam, Yves Tanguy.
Pleasant and rare collection despite a small piece missing at the foot of the spine on the double issue 2 & 3.
Complete collection in 6 issues and 5 deliveries (numbers 2 & 3 being double) of this important magazine that offers a panorama of the Surrealist movement in exile and provides an insight into the influence of the contributors on the New York art scene.

A remarkable autograph poem of youth by André Breton dedicated to Guillaume Apollinaire entitled «Décembre». 20 verses in ink on vergé d'Arches paper, composed in December 1915. This manuscript was copied between March 1917 and the beginning of 1918.

This poem is presented in a chemise and case with paper boards decorated with abstract motifs, the spine of the chemise in green morocco, pastedowns and endpapers of beige suede, a sheet of flexible plexiglass protecting the poem, case lined with green morocco, piece of green paper with caption «poème autographe» to bottom of upper cover of case, the whole by Thomas Boichot.
Key poem of the author's pre-Dadaist period, it formed part of the set of 7 manuscript poems by Breton (known as coll. X. in the Œuvres complètes d'André Breton, volume I in La Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Gallimard, 1988, p. 1071). Thiese poems of his juvenilia are carefully copied out in black ink on watermarked vergé paper. The small collection was addressed to his circle of friends and writers, most notably including Valéry, Apollinaire, Théodore Fraenkel, and his brother in arms André Paris. They were later published in his first collection, Mont de piété, which appeared in June 1919, published by Au Sans Pareil, established not long before by his friend René Hilsum.
The precise dating of this set of autograph poems is made possible by the composition of the final poem in the set («André Derain»), written on 24 March 1917, which provides a definitive terminus post quem. An earlier version of the poem «Age», dedicated to Léon-Paul Fargue, appears in our collection under its original name, «Poème». Dated by the author 19 February 1916, the day of his 20th birthday, and composed 10 days previously (according to his letters), it was not retitled and reworked until its publication in July 1918 in Les Trois Roses. Judging by the similarities to things published before this last poem, the seven autograph poems were probably written during 1917 or at the beginning of 1918, while Breton was doing his residency in Val-de-Grâce and where, significantly, he made the acquaintance of Louis Aragon.
The poems that make up Mont de piété represent a rare and valuable insight into his youthful influences at the dawn of his joining the Dada movement and his discovery of automatic writing. Quite short and sometimes sibylline, one detects Symbolist highlights borrowed from Mallarmé, whom he rediscovered at poetry mornings in the théâtre Antoine and the Vieux-Colombier accompanied by his schoolfriend Théodore Fraenkel. During the first month of the War, Breton also dedicated himself to Rimbaud, plunging into Les Illuminations, the only work he carried with him in the confusion and haste that followed the outbreak of war. From his readings of Rimbaud were born the poems «Décembre», «Age», and «André Derain», while he borrowed Apollinaire's muse Marie Laurencin to whom he dedicated «L'an suave». The author's poetic inheritance was particularly marked by Paul Valéry, with whom he corresponded from 1914. Valéry played a considerable role in the writing of the poems of Mont de piété with the advice he gave the young poet. Admiring his disciple's audacity, who addressed each of these poems to him, he characterized the poem «Façon» (1916) thus: «The theme, language, scope, meter, everything is new, in the style, the manner of the future» (Letter of June 1916, Œuvres complètes d'André Breton, vol. I in La Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Gallimard, 1988, p. 1072).
These essential buds of Breton's youth were written between his seventeenth and twenty-third year. Taken by surprise in Lorient by the declaration of war, he became a military nurse, serving in several hospitals and on the front during the Meuse offensive. In Nantes, he met Jacques Vaché, who inspired him to undertake a project of collective writing, as well as encouraging him to have illustrated the future collection that was to become Mont de piété, a task eventually undertaken by André Derain. His intimacy with this «dandy revolting against art and war» who shared his admiration for Jarry and his contact with the mental patients of the Saint Dizier neurological and psychiatric centre, marked a decisive stage in the birth of Surrealism. Posted to the Val-de-Grâce from 1917, Breton found in Paris the necessary literary vibrancy for his poetic quest and began reciting Rimbaud in the company of Aragon. It was thanks to Apollinaire that he became friends with Soupault, the future co-author of Champs magnétiques, and Reverdy, founder of the review Nord-Sud, which went on to publish the poems of Mont de piété. The seven poems of the collection were printed in avant-garde reviews (Les Trois Roses, Solstices, Nord-Sud) between 1917 and the beginning of 1919.
Four of the seven poems were dedicated to friends and masters of the author: Léon-Paul Fargue, and above all Apollinaire, to whom Breton devoted a paper in L'éventail. Breton also paid homage to Marie Laurencin and André Derain, creators of «plastic works that are still completely new, exposed to an almost unanimous rejection and intolerance» that were dear to Breton throughout his life (XXe siècle, n°3, June 1952). With these dedications, he increased the number of complex allusions, dedicating to one a poem inspired by the other, as in for instance «Age», dedicated to Léon-Paul Fargue, which echoed Rimbaud and his poem «Aube» (Les Illuminations, 1895).

The correspondence and friendship between the two poets began with the dedication of this poem, which Breton wrote in 1915. Apollinaire immediately spotted, in these lines that Breton had entrusted to him «a striking talent» (letter of 21 December 1915). Still under the spell of Rimbaud and the late Symbolism of Valéry when he wrote this poem, Breton found in Apollinaire a new poetic direction and told him a year later: «I confessed without protest the attraction you held for me. The seduction was so overwhelming that I cannot, for the moment, write about it.» The fractured structure of «Décembre» is testimony to a change that was already proceeding in the young poets work, 21 at the time. Alexandrines were set beside verses of a few syllables that dismantled meter. «At 25, the hotel with its [plug of [mistletoe I dodge the unjust spawn, O [white [soil! Hello – Europe languishes in [next [year's flames The song of the fennel – and [there [you are! We stay silent.» Breton also sent the poem to Valéry on the 14th December, who remarked on his new technique: «As to the very singular verses with their bold breaks, their allure broken and illuminated by the flash of the soliloquies at the corner of the fire, I find them an interesting study of something else, a new test of yourself.» The poem is set on the 25th December, a strange Christmas peopled by «flowering missals», «Mages» and «mangy clocks». Breton inserted another subtle dedication to his model (the «plug of mistletoe»), playing on Apollinaire's surname (Gui), which figures in his poems and his letters. «Décembre» is also the first poem by Breton directly to mention the War, and finishes on a dark image. «Private, Over there, conscript of the earth and [the standard, to be! And my arms, their warm creepers [that held you fast? - I would have savaged the life of your [poor angel breast.» This mark of admiration from Breton was followed by a study devoted to the poet's work, shortly after the publication of «Décembre» in L'Éventail on the 15 February 1919. As well as his influence as a poet and an art critic, Apollinaire posthumously contributed significantly to the birth of the post-War avant-garde movements: for if Breton was to be the theoretician behind Surrealism, it was nonetheless Apollinaire who invented the word, not to mention introducing Breton and Soupault. An extremely rare and fascinating manuscript from the young André Breton, dedicated to Apollinaire, the first Surrealist and guide for the new generation of post-War poets.

First edition, one of 15 numbered copies on Hollande paper, the leading copies.
This copy with the original frontispiece lithograph by André Masson.
Hors-texte illustrations by André Masson.
A very good and rare copy.

Original photograph, contemporary silver halide print on crumière paper, taken at the surrealist exhibition in Paris in 1938. “Wide World Photos – Services photographiques The New York Times” imprinted on the verso.
This picture depicts the object “Cadavre exquis” by André Breton, which was exhibited in the room adjacent to the main room at the exhibition and surrounded by paintings by René Magritte and sculptures by Hans Arp.
Stencilled inset glued on the back of the picture: “International Surrealism Exhibition 1938 opens at the Beaux-arts gallery. Paris. What to think of this curious “chest of drawers” on a woman's legs? Photo NYT Paris Fre. 18.1.38 DB.”

First edition of which there were no grand papier (deluxe) copies, an advance (service de presse) copy.
Bradel binding, spine slightly faded with a small spot to head, small stains on the covers, covers and spine preserved,
Contemporary binding signed by M.P. Trémois.
Exceptional and handsome autograph inscription signed by André Breton to Man Ray: “à Man Ray, dans la lumière qu'il a recréée, de tout cœur. André Breton” (“To Man Ray, in the light that he recreated, with all my heart. André Breton”)

First edition on ordinary paper.
A vertical shadow along the entire length of the lower cover, otherwise a very good copy.
Illustrated wrapper with a drawing by Claude Cahun.
Precious signed autograph inscription from the author Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes to André Breton: "... au grand chanteur / à la sirène / au ........ hélas".

First edition, one of 100 numbered copies on vellum, ours unnumbered, the only deluxe papers after 15 copies on Japon.
Illustrated with a frontispiece drawing by Salvador Dalí.
Precious signed autograph presentation from Paul Eluard to René Char : « Exemplaire de mon ami René Char. Paul Eluard. »

Autograph letter dated and signed by André Breton, 21 lines in blue ink on a single sheet, addressed to Georges Isarlo of the journal Combat-Art concerning a text given to him by his friend José Pierre.

True to form, the leading figure and high priest of Surrealism seeks to clarify matters with his correspondent: "Vous comprendrez sûrement le souci que je puis avoir de ne pas, sous un vain prétexte d'anniversaire, laisser dénaturer le sens et gâter le fruit de quarante années de lutte et voudrez bien considérer qu'il a pour tous ses signataires - répondants du surréalisme aujourd'hui - la même importance vitale que pour moi."

" What will be dispersed here, let it be said that for some it is a bit of time's treasure. Of the manna from which we draw what we need to make ourselves this shell_ the furnishing in the very broad sense where it conditions as much the choice of books as of [ornaments] plants or birds. So rare are those who, like Lise Deharme, have known how to extract what is electively made for them from both the interior [exterior] and the exterior [interior]. "To the country that resembles you", is it not of this that Baudelaire spoke?
And one finds again his melancholy in seeing, in the wind, fly like seeds [fly in the wind like a thistle] these things that so much passionate discernment had gathered as if, around the one who surrounded herself with them, they had come obeying a law of pure attraction.
The poetic taste of an epoch in what it has of specific, has sparkled there as nowhere else. That in particular it may be permitted me to say that [in its sovereign caprice, and what it exalted of the present and retained of the past] Surrealism, through several of us, has keenly undergone the ascendancy of this sovereign caprice.
"Write down everything that passes by your window" said [says] Lise and [no longer thinks today of keeping anything for herself, only the] here she adds: keep nothing but what you hold from the source's murmur of that year and from the perfume of the Moss Pot.
But everything from which she separates thanks to her will remain so charged with spirit that nothing will be able to extinguish it in its gravitation toward other destinies"

Autograph manuscript by André Breton initialed three times by his hand, written in black ink on two leaves. Multiple crossed-out and rewritten passages, annotations by his hand in pencil.
Pagination in blue pen on each of the leaves. Published in the review Medium, Paris, 1st series (sheet) no. 8, June 1953.
Breton delivers spirited literary and artistic chronicles for the Surrealist review Médium - and lashes out with great virulence against the "false witnesses" and "dubious witnesses" who criticize Surrealism.
The praise of Premier bilan de l'art actuel by his friend Robert Lebel becomes the occasion for a violent attack against Michel Tapié:

"Déplorons seulement qu'on ait fait appel [...] à un faux-témoin avéré comme M. Tapié, de qui nous avions déjà pu apprendre, au mépris de toute évidence, que ceux qu'il appelle dans son affreux jargon "les informels" (Mathieu, Riopelle, et autres) œuvraient à rebours de tout automatisme et qui a aujourd'hui le front de prétendre que Brauner, Maria, Matte et Dali ont pris l'initiative de rompre avec le surréalisme "où ils ne trouvaient plus leur compte" ce qui se passe tout autre commentaire" ("Let us only deplore that they have called upon [...] a proven false witness like M. Tapié, from whom we had already learned, in defiance of all evidence, that those he calls in his dreadful jargon 'the informals' (Mathieu, Riopelle, and others) worked against all automatism and who today has the audacity to claim that Brauner, Maria, Matte and Dali took the initiative to break with surrealism 'where they no longer found their advantage' which defies all other commentary").

In three other chronicles, he receives with interest the new work by Pierre Geyraud L'Occultisme à Paris:

"Le récent procès dit "des J. 3" a appelé l'attention sur la personnalité du père de la victime, qui, sous l'anagramme de Pierre Geyraud, a mené une série d'enquêtes 'parmi les sectes et les rites" [...] M. Geyraud continue à y braver les menaces de graves représailles que lui ont valu ses divulgations. L'accent reste ici sur l'activité luciférienne [...]" ("The recent trial known as 'the J. 3' has drawn attention to the personality of the victim's father, who, under the anagram of Pierre Geyraud, has conducted a series of investigations 'among the sects and rites' [...] M. Geyraud continues to brave the threats of serious reprisals that his disclosures have earned him. The emphasis here remains on Luciferian activity [...]")

salutes the "multiple originals" by painter Jean Fautrier:

"Par un procédé à lui, de la reproduction si fidèle d'une toile jusqu'à travers ses plus menus accidents de la pâte qu'il est impossible à l'œil nu de distinguer les copies de l'original, Jean Fautrier est passé à la création d'originaux multiples [...] Le silence gardé par la critique sur cette entreprise attesterait à lui seul de sa valeur révolutionnaire. Brisant avec un mode d'agiotage particulièrement impudent, il ne s'agit rien de moins que de mettre la peinture vivante à la portée de ceux qui l'apprécient pour elle-même" ("Through his own process, of such faithful reproduction of a canvas down to its smallest accidents of paint that it is impossible for the naked eye to distinguish copies from the original, Jean Fautrier has moved to creating multiple originals [...] The silence kept by critics about this enterprise would alone attest to its revolutionary value. Breaking with a particularly shameless mode of speculation, it is nothing less than making living painting accessible to those who appreciate it for itself").

and becomes enthusiastic about the masterpiece La Chouette aveugle by Iranian poet Sadegh Hedayat:

"Jamais plus dramatique appréhension de la condition humaine n'a suscité pareille vue en coupe de notre coquille, ni pareille conscience de nous débattre hors du temps, avec les immuables attributs qui sont notre lot [...] Un chef d'œuvre s'il en fût ! Un livre qui doit trouver place auprès de l'Aurélia de Nerval, de la Gradiva de Jensen, des Mystères d'Hamsun, qui participe des phosphorescences de Berkeley Square et des frissons de Nosferatu [...]" ("Never has a more dramatic apprehension of the human condition inspired such a cross-section view of our shell, nor such awareness of struggling outside of time, with the immutable attributes that are our lot [...] A masterpiece if ever there was one! A book that must find its place alongside Nerval's Aurélia, Jensen's Gradiva, Hamsun's Mysteries, which partakes of the phosphorescences of Berkeley Square and the shivers of Nosferatu [...]").

Superb manuscript by the father of Surrealism filled with annotations and revisions.

First edition, a Service de Presse (advance) copy.
A discreet restoration using a small adhesive piece on the verso of the first cover extending onto the first endpaper.

Autograph inscription signed by André Breton: "A Claude Aveline, hommage d'André Breton".
Nicknamed at 21 "the world's youngest publisher," Claude Aveline would publish from 1922 onwards, thanks to André Gide and Georges Duhamel, some fifty works. In 1934, he would engage in politics, alongside Henri Barbusse and Romain Rolland, in the anti-fascist movement then, from August 1940, in the Resistance first in Paris then in the free zone where he would miraculously escape arrest by the Gestapo in April 1944.

Autograph envelope addressed by André Breton to his friend Géo Dupin, curator of the La Cour d'Ingres art gallery at 17 quai Voltaire, from whom the Pope of Surrealism acquired several paintings.

The address is written in black ink (some letters slightly smudged).

A well-preserved example.

First edition, one of 9 numbered copies on Japon, only deluxe issue aside from 35 copies on pur fil, and a few on colored paper.
Small restorations to spine-ends.
Illustrated with 20 photographs, including 7 photographs by Man Ray, 4 by Brassaï, one each by Dora Maar, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Rogi André, as well as artworks by Max Ernst, and the statue of a "female character" by Giacometti, in which the writer saw "the very emanation of the desire to love and to be loved in search of its real human object, in its painful ignorance".


 

Autograph manuscript signed by André Breton, written in black ink on two sheets of green paper.
Horizontal fold to each sheet, pagination in red pencil on the 2nd sheet. Published in the journal Art, 1955.

"Si quelque part au monde le coeur de la liberté continue à battre, s'il est un lieu d'où ses coups nous parviennent mieux frappés que de partout ailleurs, nous savons tous que ce lieu est l'Espagne." ["If anywhere in the world the heart of freedom continues to beat, if there is a place from which its beats reach us more clearly struck than from anywhere else, we all know that this place is Spain."]

"N'oublions pas que le monstre qui pour un temps nous tient encore à sa merci s'est fait les griffes en Espagne. C'est là qu'il a commencé à faire suinter ses poisons : le mensonge, la division, la démoralisation, la disparition, qui pour la première fois il a fait luire ses buissons de fusils au petit matin, à la tombée du soir ses chambres de torture. Les Hitler, les Mussolini, les Staline, ont eu là leur laboratoire de vivisection, leur école de travaux pratiques. Les fours crématoires, les mines de sel, les escaliers glissants de la N.K.V.D., l'extension à perte de vue du monde concentrationnaire ont été homologués à partir de là. C'est d'Espagne que part l'égouttement de sang indélébile témoignant d'une blessure qui peut être mortelle pour le monde. C'est en Espagne que pour la première fois aux yeux de tous, le droit de vivre libre a été frappé." ["Let us not forget that the monster that still holds us at its mercy for a time sharpened its claws in Spain. It is there that it began to make its poisons seep: lies, division, demoralization, disappearance, where for the first time it made its thickets of rifles gleam in the early morning, its torture chambers at nightfall. The Hitlers, the Mussolinis, the Stalins, had their vivisection laboratory there, their school of practical work. The crematory ovens, the salt mines, the slippery stairs of the N.K.V.D., the endless extension of the concentration camp world were approved from there. It is from Spain that flows the indelible dripping of blood testifying to a wound that may be mortal for the world. It is in Spain that for the first time in everyone's eyes, the right to live free was struck down."]

« J'ai, de plus, ici, une histoire de tous les diables. Figure-toi que, jeudi dernier, nous nous rendons avec les Dax à Cabrerets dans l'intention de visiter la grotte qui présente de nombreux dessins préhistoriques. Tu sais que j'ai toujours eu des doutes sur l'authenticité d'une partie de ces dessins qui remonteraient à 30 000 ans et sont d'une fraîcheur et d'une fragilité bien singulières. Le guide commençait à peine ses explications devant ce qu'il nommait « la chapelle des mammouths » et j'étais déjà agacé par ce mot de chapelle introduit là de manière absolument tendancieuse quand je portai le doigt sur une des lignes tracées sur la paroi, pour voir si un enduit calcaire la recouvrait. C'est à ce moment que le guide, furibond, m'asséna sur la main un violent coup de bâton. Comme de juste, une très violente dispute s'ensuivit, au cours de laquelle je remis le pouce au même endroit et frottai légèrement, assez toutefois pour constater que la ligne s'effaçait comme un simple trait de fusain, me laissant toute sa poussière au doigt. Le guide, qui se donna alors pour le concessionnaire de la grotte et dont je devais apprendre peu après qu'il n'était autre qu'un député M.R.P. (c'est-à-dire catholique) du Lot, fit immédiatement appeler la police mais les gendarmes arrivèrent trop tard : nous étions déjà partis, non sans que j'aie corrigé à coups de poing le personnage en question, qui me traitait de « lâche » entre autres choses. Hier j'ai reçu ici la visite d'un gendarme qui m'a donné lecture de la plainte déposée contre moi par cet individu, qui me poursuit en dommages et intérêts pour dégradation de dessin figurant une trompe de mammouth : tu imagines ! Comme cette grotte de Cabrerets est une des grandes attractions touristiques du département et que le plaignant est député et intéressé à l'exploitation (200 F l'entrée) de ce prétendu sanctuaire, je ne suis pas sans inquiétudes sur les suites de l'affaire : ma consolation est de l'avoir littéralement roué de coups (mon poing en est encore tout meurtri). »

« La tentation de la désobéissance et de la révolte ne semble pas avoir abandonné le « Pape du Surréalisme », André Breton, qui se repose actuellement dans sa retraite de Saint-Cirq-Lapopie, dans le Lot. Mêlé à un groupe de touristes conduits par M. Bessac, député du département, il visitait dernièrement la grotte préhistorique de Cabrerets. Passant devant l'un des nombreux dessins rupestres qui couvrent les parois, l'écrivain mit le doigt sur la trompe d'un mammouth, défiant ainsi les barrières et les interdictions. Ce que voyant, M. Bessac, s'empressa de lui rappeler l'existence de règlements draconiens, interdisant expressément toute atteinte contre les précieux et fragiles dessins. Mais André Breton, se souvenant sans doute du beau temps de son premier manifeste, continua son manège. Sur une nouvelle et pressante intervention de M. Bessac, il aurait même, selon certains témoins, prononcé des paroles désobligeantes à l'égard du député. M. Bessac lui intima l'ordre de sortir, mais sans succès et la gendarmerie réussit à faire ce que la persuasion n'avait pu réussir. Parions qu'André Breton doit sourire de son aventure malgré la plainte pour dégradation de monument historique qui a été déposée contre lui. »

First edition, one of 796 numbered copies on pur fil paper, the only grands papiers (deluxe copies) after 109 reimposed.
Full green board Bradel binding, title piece in glazed yellow calf, covers and spine preserved, contemporary binding.
Presentation copy inscribed by André Breton: “à Edmond Jaloux, hommage très dévoué. André Breton” “To Edmond Jaloux, a very devoted tribute. André Breton”.
Edmond Jaloux, who was one of the earliest promoters of surrealism, wrote at the release of this atypical novel and misunderstood by most of his contemporaries, the most laudatory article of the time, concluding with this admiring admission of the impotence of criticism in the face of the modernity of Breton's work; “this examination, I can sense it, remains outside the book and in no ways gives you the feeling of intense poetry, of great, free and true poetry which absolves Nadja and which affects your mind [...] like an extremely intoxicating alcohol, with this difference that no alcohol gives you dreams that stimulate the moving prose of Monsieur André Breton.”
Precious grand papier (deluxe) copy with a handwritten inscription from the author and filled with the original article by Edmond Jaloux pasted on two loose double leaves.

Extremely rare first edition of this pro­gram leaflet by the Studio 28 cinema, founded by Jean Mauclaire, featuring texts by the Surrealist group on Luis Buñuel's film L'Âge d'or.
Slight lacks on the spine, with two small tears at the head and foot, and a shad­ow mark at the head of the first cover.
Handwritten bookplate "Jean Vigo" — likely autograph — inscribed in black ink in the lower right corner of the page featuring Salvador Dalí's illustra­tion.
Literary contributions by Louis Aragon, André Breton, René Char, Salvador Dalí, Paul Éluard, Georges Sadoul and Tristan Tzara.
The program is illustrated with works by Hans Arp, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, Man Ray, and Yves Tanguy, as well as numer­ous stills from Buñuel's L'Âge d'or.
A very rare copy of this very fragile programme of Luis Buñuel's film, with well-preserved gilt covers. With an exceptional provenance, it belonged to the filmmaker Jean Vigo, the cele­brated director of L'Atalante, a rebel­lious figure in cinema with a dazzling career. An admirer of Buñuel's work, Vigo also wrote a glowing review of Le Chien andalou.

***


Directed by Luis Buñuel in 1930 with a screenplay co-written by Salvador Dalí, L'Âge d'Or is the paragon of avant-garde and Surrealist cinema. Commissioned by Charles de Noailles, whose wife Marie-Laure de Noailles was one of France's wealthiest, the film was first shown in July 1930 in the De Noailles mansion. It was later shown on Octo­ber, 22 at the Panthéon Rive Gauche and on November 28 and December 3, 1930, at Studio 28 in Montmartre. During the final screening, the theater was vandalized by far-right militants shouting, "Let's see if there are any Christians left in France" and "Death to the Jews". They threw ink at the screen, released smoke bombs and stink bombs, and forced the audience to leave. The film was immediately censored for its anti-patriotic and an­ti-Christian content, and seized on De­cember, 12.
This "Revue-programme" [program leaflet], divided into 2 parts (the leaflet is to be flipped upside-down to read the second half), was published for the Studio 28 screenings in 1930. One part, the largest, of 38 pages, is devoted to Luis Buñuel's film and begins with a short text by Salvador Dali: "My gener­al idea when writing the script of L'Âge d'or with Buñuel was to present the straight and pure line of "conduct" of a being who pursues love through the despicable humanitarian, patriotic, and other wretched mechanisms of reality". The program includes the film's script, subtitles, dialogue, and a long essay ending with "Aspect social - éléments subversifs" written by the leading Sur­realists of the time. It also features the Catalogue des oeuvres exposées au Studio 28 ('Catalog of works exhibited at Studio 28'), a list of Surrealist books available at Corti's bookstore, and thirty black-and-white stills from the film.
Cinephile turned filmmaker, Jean Vigo was drawn to Buñuel's Surrealism in his first cinematic work, À Propos de Nice (1930), which includes surrealist-in­spired scenes such as bare feet being waxed and a woman smoking a cigarette before suddenly disrobing. This social documentary premiered two months before L'Âge d'or. Vigo had already ad­mired the "savage poetry" of Un chien andalou in an film critic that remains authoritative. Like Buñuel, Vigo was no stranger to scandal with his film Zero for Conduct (1933), heavily influenced by his difficult childhood and murdered anarchist father. It remained censored for over fifteen years. Shortly before Vigo's early death, the two filmmakers joined the Association des Écrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires. Vigo's short-lived career was rediscovered by the Nouvelle Vague, notably Truffaut, who was"immediately overcome with an in­tense admiration for this [Vigo's] body of work, whose total runtime does not even reach 200 minutes".
An exceptional copy linking two tow­ering figures of cinema—Surrealist and Impressionist—indisputably connect­ed by their poetic and rebellious por­trayals of bourgeois society.
Provenance: Jean Vigo; Claude Aveline, his executor.