Ivan Goran KOVATCHITCH. - Lot 146

Lot n° 146
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Ivan Goran KOVATCHITCH. - Lot 146
Ivan Goran KOVATCHITCH. The Common Pit. Poem presented by Marko Ristitch and preceded by the Tomb of Goran Kovatchitch by Paul Éluard, with a burin by Picasso. Paris, La Bibliothèque française, 1948. Grand in-4, paperback, filled cover. First French edition of La Fosse commune presented by Marko Ristich, friend of André Breton and Paul Éluard, one of the main surrealists of Yugoslavia. Original edition of The Tomb of Goran Kovatchitch by Paul Éluard. One of the 110 reimposed copies on Arches paper (no. 11), enriched with an original burin signed by Picasso. A Croatian poet, Ivan Goran Kovatchitch joined the partisans in January 1943: he was assassinated six months later, in July, on the orders of a Chechen-fascist officer. The Common Pit, his major work, is based on the story of a young man left for dead and thrown into a pit, but who survived. The poem, "in ten rigorously constructed songs, [sets out] the frightening indictment of the atrocities that the Ustashi subjected their victims to [...]. All this is told, in a continuous paroxysm, by a victim whose eyes were gouged out, who, through his blind account, enlightens us all the more on his appalling experience" (Goeppert). Goeppert emphasizes the unique style in Picasso's engraved work, which recalls the framed constructions of Oscar Dominguez with whom the painter was linked, suggesting that it was a way of paying homage to his friend (Goeppert & Cramer, Pablo Picasso, catalogue raisonné des livres illustrés, no. 49 - Éluard, OEuvres complètes, Pléiade, II, p. 1106). Copy preserved as published.
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