[Paul éluard]. - Lot 95

Lot n° 95
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Result : 12 000EUR
[Paul éluard]. - Lot 95
[Paul éluard]. In the absence of silence. Without place nor date [Paris, 1925]. Large in-4, half red chagrin, smooth spine, entirely untrimmed, cover preserved (contemporary binding). Original edition. Unique edition at 51 copies, this one of the 50 on paper from Holland (#8). Rare book illustrated with 20 full-page drawings by Max Ernst, including more than 130 studies of the face of Gala, the poet's companion. "The collaboration between Éluard and Max Ernst since Rehearsals and The Misfortunes of the Immortals is just as evident in Au défaut du silence [...], a masterpiece to which, however, little reference is made" (Lucien Scheler). Exceptional signed autograph letter from Gala: to Louis Aragon ami de tous les jours Gala This "everyday friend" was however seven years later to be the target of virulent attacks by the Surrealists provoked by the publication of the poem Front rouge. Éluard was among the most violent: in March 1932, in a letter addressed to André Breton, he castigated "this scoundrel of Aragon", "this filthy individual" with "crass dishonesty". Bound by their political commitment, however, the two poets had to be reconciled during the Second World War and, in 1948, Aragon prefaced Paul Éluard's Political Poems. A fine copy in the binding of the time: it was undoubtedly executed on the instructions of Paul Éluard. The copy of the first edition of L'Athlète des pompes funéraires de Picabia with a consignment to the poet is thus bound in the same way (cf. catalogue Jean-Paul Kahn I, no. 74). The autograph manuscript of the work is bound at the top. It includes a reused parchment leaf (the text of a handwritten royal ordinance from the 18th century) bearing the title and six folio leaves on old laid paper (Centre Georges Pompidou, Paul Éluard et ses amis peintres, 1982, p. 108: "In 1925, Au défaut du silence, a tribute to Gala, was published , composed of short, incisive poems, decorated with pe
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