"Je suis, de nouveau, en mauvais termes avec Max Ernst, Masson devenu gaulliste est parti hier pour Paris."

Unpublished autograph letter signed by André Breton addressed to Marcel Jean, two pages written in blue ink on a sheet. "Air mail" envelope enclosed. Creases inherent to mailing.
This letter is mentioned and very briefly quoted in Marcel Jean's autobiography, Au galop dans le vent.
Important and lengthy letter sent from New York when Breton, in exile since 1943 as he was considered a "dangerous anarchist" by the Pétainist government, was forced - like many intellectuals - to leave France in order to continue working. He shares with his friend the "overwhelming despair" ["l'accablement"] that the city brings him and one still senses his eagerness to return to his homeland.
Painter, draftsman and decorator, Marcel Jean joined the Surrealist group in 1933 and became one of the movement's first chroniclers. One can sense all his emotion upon receiving this letter, which he discusses at length in his autobiography: "October 1945, I write to André Breton in New York. In response, two densely written pages of fine calligraphy. My letter, whose tone must have pleased him, gave him "real pleasure" ["vraiment plaisir"]. He finds me "healthy, safe and by no means lacking in that lucid, smiling, very human way of seeing" ["sain, sauf et nullement dénué de cette façon de voir lucide, souriante, très humaine"] that he has always known in me ("I just thought ["Je viens de penser"], he says, of your firm handshake ["à ta rude poignée de main"]..."). I had mentioned to him the study on Lautréamont whose elements I am gathering, he encourages me to give extracts of it, for a Surrealist issue being prepared for the magazine Vrille, "this without prejudice to a drawing by you that Vrille should reproduce" ["cela sans préjudice de dessin de toi que Vrille devrait reproduire"], and, for the same magazine, to submit "a certain number of recent works to an in-depth analytical and critical commentary" ["un certain nombre d'ouvrages récents à un commentaire analytique et critique approfondi"]. This is followed by advice and encouragement regarding a work of literary criticism he would like to see me undertake. Then some news from America and our friends: Max Ernst, Tanguy, Péret, who is bored in Mexico, Matta, who "paints large panels in a new genre (sadistic figurative) much remarked upon." ["peint de grands panneaux dans un nouveau genre (figuratif sadique) très remarqués."]. And the vigorous signature. Breton's letters, their contrast between the text, with extremely regular handwriting, and the flourish, hurried, and in both scripts something controlled, have always given me the impression that in writing to me he was doing me the favor of an autograph. His message outlined for me a program as chronicler in view of his return to Paris in the spring, but I had in mind something other than commenting on the commentaries of critics whose interest he pointed out to me - Maurice Blanchot or Léon-Pierre Quint. My projects concerned the study of Lautréamont and then - or at the same time: to paint, and to draw."