On Paintings and Sculptures

Newspaper Clipping Annotated by Paul Éluard

First edition of the exceptionally rare catalog of Claude Monet and Auguste Rodin's dual exhibition at the Georges Petit gallery in Paris.
With introductory essays by Octave Mirbeau for Monet and Gustave Geffroy for Rodin. The catalog features 145 paintings by Monet and 36 sculptures by Rodin in chronological order, including the famous Impression soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise) as well as Le Penseur (The Thinker), still described as a part of the Gates of Hell for which it was originally created.
Small restoration to head of spine, title and dates penned on spine, traces of stamp on front pastedown, scattered foxing thoughout. 
Rare copy of the exhibition catalog of Claude Monet and Auguste Rodin: the greatest of the Impressionists and the most famous sculptor of his time, united by their love of nature and their tireless quest towards artistic ideal.
"Rodin and Monet were bound by a lifelong friendship and reciprocal admiration. While they were true contemporaries, born within two days of one another in November 1840, it is hard to pinpoint when they actually met. They were almost certainly introduced by mutual friends like writers and critics Octave Mirbeau and Gustave Geoffroy, or the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel. On his return from Belle-Île in 1886, Monet is known to have started attending dinners held by the "Bons Cosaques", a group of artists and men of letters gathered together by Octave Mirbeau. Rodin also frequented these literary and artistic dinners that contributed to the intellectual effervescence of the period and challenged Academicism. By the time of the exhibition held at the Galerie Georges Petit in 1889, the four protagonists (Rodin, Monet, Mirbeau and Geffroy) definitely knew and already respected each other. On a visit to the Mirbeau family, near Auray (Brittany), in 1887, Rodin saw the ocean for the first time and is said to have exclaimed: "It's a Monet!" To Mirbeau's way of thinking, Rodin and Monet had embarked on the same artistic adventure and were destined to be equally successful. In November 1886, he wrote to Rodin about the paintings that Monet was going to exhibit at Petit's gallery the following year: "He works hard and, in my opinion, he has done great things: it will be a new facet of his talent; a formidable, awe-inspiring Monet, of whom we were unaware... Our friend Monet is a heroic man of courage, and if anyone deserves to succeed alongside you, it's him. [...] the dual exhibition was a great success with the public and critics. According to Mirbeau, Monet and Rodin embodied "most gloriously and most definitively, the two arts of painting and sculpture" (Rodin Museum).

Original portrait of the painter Mai Trung Thu, known as Mai-Thu, inscribed on verso with his emblematic monogram in colored pen: "à l'abbé Guéniart en souvenir du séjour au S.U.J.A / Maï Thu / 14.6.57".

In this handsome portrait, Mai-Thu is surrounded by his paintings on silk - no fewer than seven, including a children scene closely related to his 1965 masterpiece (Aguttes sale, September 26, 2023). The great themes that made the Hanoi School painter famous are to be found here: ideal women, children's games, tea ceremonies... Each canvas is carefully framed, often in Mai-Thu's own tireless perfectionist hands.

The painter underwent several cures in the 1950s to treat his tuberculosis, including one at the Sanatorium Universitaire Jacques Arnaud (mentioned by its acronym the inscription), where he met Father René Quéniart to whom he gifted the photograph.

Exhibition catalogue listing 66 paintings by Félix Vallotton exhibited at the Druet gallery, 20, rue Royale in Paris, from 22 April to 3 May 1929.
Light worming to the first cover, otherwise a handsome copy.
Catalogue illustrated with 7 photographic reproductions of works by Félix Vallotton.

First edition, one of 100 copies on Japon, the only deluxe issue.

Navy blue half shagreen with slight color restoration, spine with five raised bands abundantly framed in gilt, blue watered silk flyleaves, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, original wrappers and spine preserved, gilt top edge, binding signed J. Querelle.

Autograph letter dated and signed by Antonin Artaud on Le Dôme brasserie letterhead, addressed to Maurice Martin du Gard, founder and director of Nouvelles Littéraires. 29 lines in blue ink in a nervous handwriting.
Traces of folds and small marginal tears inherent to postal dispatch and handling. Minor stains at the beginning of the letter.

Antonin Artaud fought to have his article on Balthus's painting, exhibited for the first time in France, published. He fiercely defended the artist he considered his 'double', so similar were they physically and intellectually.

First edition, with the author's facsimile signature and date "october 1940" on the endpaper.
Split hinges, some foxing on the endpapers.
Publisher's sand-colored cloth binding, black title-label on the front cover.
Handsome copy of this notebook reproducing 82 sketches made in London air-raid shelters during the Blitz.

Autograph postcard signed by Jean Paulhan, 22 lines written in black ink addressed to Felia Leal the publisher of "Paroles transparentes", a work by Jean Paulhan decorated with 14 original lithographs by Georges Braque.
Central fold mark on the card which represents the painting by Georges Braque entitled: Cliffs and Boat.
Jean Paulhan asks for news of his correspondent: "Are you completely cured? What if it were me instead who came to your place?" and is amazed by the smallness of Parisian taxis: "These taxis for dwarf people are dreadful..."
From the narrowness of taxis, Jean Paulhan shifts to Gallimard's editorial timidity: "Imagine that G.G. keeps neither Blanchot, nor Noël Devaulx, nor... nor... [...] Basically G.G. is becoming Hachette and all the experience of the (young) nrf has to start over."

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.

“Yes I have sarcasm in my words, yes I do not know how to flatter and bend my back, how to beg in official salons […] I am nothing but a braying schemer, but if I had submitted - yes I would be comfortable."

Long autograph letter dated August 1896 and signed by Paul Gauguin to painter Daniel de Monfreid. Four pages in black ink on two lined sheets.
Small tears to margins not affecting the text, traces of folds inherent to sending.
In the midst of his descent into hell, abandoned in his Tahitian artificial paradise, Gauguin feels cursed : “Definitely, I was born under a bad star.”, he laments. His quest for primitive freedom leaves him in destitution and misery. Suffering agony, the painter sends paintings to one of his few supporters, his faithful friend Daniel de Monfreid - but writes the wrong address...
Published in Lettres de Paul Gauguin à Georges-Daniel de Monfreid, 1918, p. 146, n° XXIII; our letter reveals the name of Émile Schuffenecker, his friend and associate on the Paris stock exchange and then Pont-Aven - anonymized in the published version - whom Gauguin vilifies on numerous occasions in these pages.
This exceptional missive was written in Tahiti, where the painter had returned the previous year, bidding a final farewell to the old Europe. Gauguin had just come out from a stay in hospital in Papeete to treat his bruised legs following the beating he had received in Concarneau two years earlier for defending his muse, Annah the Javanese. The painter could not escape the aftermath of this altercation and suffered from a terrible purulent eczema on his leg, as well as syphilis, drowning his torments in alcohol. The letter is a perfect example of Gauguin's correspondence from the summer of 1896 which "smells of the fever that has seized a mind overheated by pain and lack of sleep" (David Haziot). In his confusion, the painter misspelt the address of Monfreid's studio at the Cité Fleurie, a famous chalet-like artists' residence where Gauguin had stayed : “I sent you a bunch of paintings last month. I'm afraid for them because it seems to me that I put 55 Bd Arago instead of 65” This mailing included his composition Eihaha Ohipa, painted in his studio in Punaauia and now kept at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. Shipped via a naval officer - fees to be paid by Monfreid - the paintings did not arrive until November. Beyond his feverish fears, Gauguin delivers in these lines a true manifesto of his integrity as an artist - the perfect counterpart to his famous Christlike self-portrait Near Golgotha, painted around the same period. To him, his destiny and generosity are nothing short of Christ-like: “in the most difficult moments of my life, I more than shared with unfortunate people and never had any reward other than complete abandonment”. He had in fact helped display Schuffenecker's paintings in Impressionist exhibitions, saved his friend Laval from suicide and opened his purse to so many others. Instead of returning the favor, Schuffenecker prefers to feel sorry for himself: “Schuff really wrote me a crazy and unfair letter and I don't know what to answer because he is a sick mind [...] he would be more unhappy than me who has glory, strength and health. Let's talk about it! I'm good at making others jealous, he says”. Gauguin, who had always refused to make concessions and compromise, is finally betrayed by one of his closest relations, Schuffenecker, who becomes in the letter a true Judas Iscariot: “Schuff has just made a useless petition, I believe, for the State to come to my aid. This is the thing that can offend me the most. I'm asking friends to help me out for the time it takes to get back the money I'm owed, and their efforts to recover it, but begging the State was never my intention”. The painter reaches a point of no return, not only bruised in his flesh, but also in his self-esteem: “All my efforts to fight outside the official arena, the dignity I have strived for all my life, are now losing their character. From this day I am nothing but a braying schemer, but if I had submitted - yes I would be comfortable. Really, this is a sorrow that I didn't intend to have. Definitely, I was born under a bad star.” After this final abandonment, Gauguin gave free rein to his artistic and sensual frenzy in his Maison du Jouir in the Marquesas.
Suffering and penniless, Gauguin proclaims his distress and shattered pride - a Nabi Christ abandoning his cross, ready to fall into lust and the intoxication of the paintbrush.

Autograph letter dated and signed by Edgar Degas, addressed to the dealer Charles Deschamps, director of Durand-Ruel’s London branch. Three pages in ink on a bifolium.
Minor marginal tears not affecting the text, folds from mailing.
Recently returned from New Orleans, Degas writes to his London dealer to announce the imminent arrival of a delicate composition of dancers, Le Foyer de la danse à l’Opéra de la rue Le Peletier, now held at the Musée d’Orsay: "In the meantime you will receive the little picture you saw in progress and which you had the idea of selling to Mr. Huth - May you succeed! [...] As for the price, it seems to me that £150 to £200 is fair" Deschamps fulfilled the painter’s wishes and sold the painting to Louis Huth, financier and patron of Whistler, for £140. The canvas would later enter the distinguished collection of Isaac de Camondo.
Degas turned towards London at a time when the English art market offered relief from the collapse that followed the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. He placed great hopes in this expanding British market, fuelled by lucrative blockbuster exhibitions drawing millions of visitors; Degas’s canvases were shown in eight exhibitions of the Société des Artistes Français. Although he often mentions financial difficulties in his correspondence "At the end of the month I have quite a lot to pay. If some money came in, I would be delighted [...] - Take care of me, my dear Deschamps, I would be most obliged - Tell me also if the season is not too far advanced. I fear it is" his career across the Channel was flourishing and his sales profitable. The painter does not fail to salute the "French colony" of expatriate artists, Giuseppe de Nittis and his close friend James Tissot, whose financial success provided Degas with an example of how effectively a French painter’s work could be marketed in England. Unlike Tissot, however, Degas refused to adapt to market taste, focusing instead on defending the Impressionist cause in France and abroad.
He also devotes a passage to a voracious collector of his works, the baritone Jean-Baptiste Faure, patron of his celebrated series of canvases on the Paris Opéra and owner of Manet’s Déjeuner sur l’herbe: "I ought to have been in London some time ago, according to what I said. I am not there because the picture for [Jean-Baptiste] Faure is not finished, and I would not like to meet him there without being able to give him better news, and I hardly have time to dawdle if I want not to arrive on the 1^st of September with nothing to deliver to him". Ironically, Faure would later reproach Degas for leaving his canvases unfinished (!) and even sue him a few years afterwards.
 
A rare and exceptional letter tracing the history of one of Degas’s celebrated works and his dealings with dealers and collectors, on the eve of the first Impressionist exhibition to be held the following year.