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2 000 €

Réf : 75184

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André BRETON

Lettre autographe signée inédite adressée à Marcel Jean et son enveloppe présentant un quatrain autographe

Antibes 5 février 1948, 21x27cm, une page sur un feuillet, enveloppe jointe.

Autograph signed letter addressed to Marcel Jean and its envelope with a handwritten poem

Autograph letter signed by André Breton, likely unpublished and addressed to Marcel Jean, one page written in blue ink on a leaf of blue paper, in fine, neat handwriting. The envelope accompanying the letter is enclosed, written by André Breton and presenting an amusing handwritten poem: “C'est à Paris, rue Hégésippe / Moreau 17, que Marcel Jean / Croise, tels soufre et vif-argent, / Le perroquet et la tulipe”. On the back, Breton's address in Antibes “Shady Roch Avenue des Pins”; it is the villa of Marie Cuttoli and her husband Henri Laugier.
This envelope is of crucial importance: it alone sums up the style of Marcel Jean's paintings; the artist has chosen to reproduce it in his book: “Frédérick Kiesler arranged for me [...] an exhibition of my “Arcimboldiesque” paintings, as I composed then, about which I had received a letter from André Breton to the Mallarmean address: [transcription of the envelope accompanying our letter]”. (Marcel Jean, Au galop dans le vent, 1991)
This letter was written shortly after the release of the Néon n°1, the first Surrealist journal to be published after the war: “I have just written to Maurice Henri (sic), who reached out to me about Néon, whose appearance it seems, troubled you too. I don't really want to repeat myself. Ask him, if you would like to, to give you my opinion.” “In January 1948, the first issue of a Surrealist journal was finally published, Néon “Being nothing; Being everything; Open the being.” Innovative (it makes use of all the possibilities offered by the offset), it is directed by newcomers to Surrealism: Sarane Alexandrian, Jindrich Heisler, Véra Hérold, Stanislas Rodanski, Claude Tarnaud. The presentation text, unpleasantly idealist, speaks of an “elective group situated beyond ideas”. Fearing a kind of dissent, the elders, Maurice Henry, Marcel Jean, Henri Pastoureau, were troubled. From Antibes (where, for lack of funds, he prolonged his stay with Elisa at Marie Cuttoli's), Breton wrote to deescalate emotions” (Henri Béhar, André Breton)
“The “ticket coup” was keenly felt (an early return is not impossible). We do not see anyone other than Matisse, who has an astonishing freshness of spirit.” The “ticket coup” likely refers to a project that the Surrealists will set up in collaboration with the anarchists by publishing a series of tickets ranging from October 1951 to January 1953. “In Antibes, Breton shows Néon to Matisse, whom he saw often, and of whom he praised “the astonishing freshness of spirit”. From what he wanted to tell us, the great painter's judgement was final. “How does Néon concern me? Matisse would have asked. What responsibility, even the most distant, can I have in this thing?””(Marcel Jean, op. cit.)

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