VULTURES DESCEND UPON BRETON'S EXQUISITE CORPSE!
The contents of André Breton’s small flat at 42 rue Fontaine where he lived from 1922 until his death, near Pigalle in Paris, is being sold at auction between the 1 and 18 April 2003.
Breton (1896–1966) is the historic leader of the revolutionary artistic movement surrealism which, launched in Paris in 1924, has influenced many spheres of creativity throughout the world. Poet, theorist of artistic creation, art critic and socialist, he participated in most of the advanced social and artistic movements of his time.
Yet how is it that this priceless record of twentieth century culture risks being broken up and dispersed without protest from the French intellectual milieu?
Libération reports: “His heirs, his wife Elisa then his daughter Aube, having kept in place, for 36 years and despite, we can imagine, very pressing approaches, the collection of pictures, books, photographs, objects belonging to Breton: all the philosophical clutter of a collector of curiosities of genius had remained there, in its authentic setting.”
In the catalogue of CamelsCohen, organisers of the auction, which is taking place at the Hôtel Drouot-Richelieu, can be found works of Le Douanier, Rousseau, Magritte, Picabia, Toyen, Miro, Arp, Tanguy, André Masson, Max Ernst—more than 400 pictures. Also 1,500 photographs, many original prints by Man Ray, Nadar, Denise Ballon, Bellmer, Boiffard and Claude Cahun. There are books signed for Breton by Leon Trotsky, Freud, Apollinaire and many others. There are cultural artifacts from aboriginal societies in the Americas and Oceania as well as the manuscripts of many of Breton’s own writings. The sale is expected to fetch $30-40 million.
The only major public exhibition of the surrealist leader is “Breton’s Wall”, the wall behind his desk at 42 rue Fontaine, with shelves full of his objets trouvés, pictures, photographs, donated by his wife Elisa Breton Elléouet, and to be reconstructed at the Pompidou Centre art museum in Paris in lieu of death duties on Breton’s estate. “Presented to the museum, this installation is due to take its place among the permanent collections, as death duties, as part of payment on Elisa Breton’s estate” ( Le Monde, 21 December 2002).
". . . at the time of my thousandth childhood
I charmed that shining torpedo fish . . .
We see the unbelievable and we believe it in spite of ourselves . . . "