Collage original surréaliste - "L'Oiseau pleure"

Original collage by Georges Hugnet, signed in white ink "G.H. 1961". Matted and under a wooden frame without glass. A tiny 5 mm marginal tear.

An irreverent, whimsical photo-collage by the Surrealist artist and writer Georges Hugnet. Throughout his diverse oeuvre, collage represented an enduring passion for Hugnet, placing him as among the leading innovators in the medium in the XXth century.

Collage appeared early in Hugnet's work; from his childhood his creations were akin to empirical proto-Surrealism, cutting up newspapers and rearranging headlines, articles, and images to create his own journal: "In this way, he created collages full of fantasy and humour, which he continued to do subsequently in his theatre pieces, poetry, and cinematographic work. Hugnet considered the rectangular frame of a painting too restrictive. Through the cross-fertilisation of different disciplines, his work achieved great diversity. It is precisely this wealth of imagination that he always defended as a Dadaist/Surrealist" (Nationale Bibliotheek, The Hague).

In 1932, after meeting André Breton, he joined the Surrealist group and remained a member until 1939. Hugnet then contributed to the journal Le Surréalisme au service de la Révolution and published numerous books illustrated by members of the group. During the movement's heyday, he was a fervent adept of this emblematic means of expression of Surrealism, and with Marcel Duchamp created one of the most important books of that era, La Septième face du dé, a collection of 20 poem-collages cut from mass-media sources and arranged into erotic writings and images, published in 1936 by Jeanne Bucher. 

Hugnet also remained renowned for his analysis of collage, writing numerous articles on the works of Max Ernst and Miró in particular, and even inspired Oscar Domínguez to create a kind of relief collage, "Pérégrinations de Georges Hugnet". This technique would accompany him well beyond his adventure within the Surrealist movement: the present work dating from 1961 belongs to his second major period of collage creation, notably marked by the publication of his eponymous book 1961 illustrated with four photomontages. The Surrealist poet's final book caricatured a Michelin guide through more than eighty photo-collages in the same spirit of avant-garde provocation (Huit jours à Trébaumec, 1969).