Picabia dada

ALAS!
Women Men
Business
A country ambitious
Of sovereignty
I like that one bends eyes
of troubles
Especially in the sea chest
But I tell disinterested lies
It's almost the same thing
The truth of the soul
Is the great cowardice of academic pride
My eyes in your eyes
I'm happy
In my isolated loneliness

Picabia (1879-1953) - Poem and reproduction quote from Poèmes et dessins de la fille née sans mère.

Currently the librairie Loliée offers :

• Jésus-Christ Rastaquouère. Dessins par Ribemont-Dessaignes. S.l. (Paris), Collection Dada, s.d., in-8. First edition. This copy contains a dedication from the author to Pierre Birot, director of the artistic revue SIC.
• Poèmes et dessins de la fille née sans mère. 18 dessins - 51 poèmes. Lausanne, Imprimeries Réunies S.A., 1918, in-8. Rare first edition.
• Laissez déborder le hasard. Gravure de Gianni Bertini. S.l., P.A.B., s.d., in-4, in leaves. First edition of this poem illstrated with an original engraving by Gianni Bertini. Limited to 29 copies, this one signed by the publisher P.A.B. and designed to Michel Perrin.
  
• Oui Non. S.l., P.A.B.,1953, in-16, brochée. First edition. Limited to 111 copies numbered and signed by the publisher P.A.B.
• [PICABIA (Francis)]. Francis Picabia 1879-1954. S.l., Orbes, 1955, in-8, in leaves. Not for sale booklet published in tribute to Picabia. Limited to 191 copies on Auvergne paper. Texts and reproduced drawings by Jean Arp, P.-A. Benoît, Camille Bryen, Marcel Duchamp, Bernard Fricker, Jean Van Heeckeren, George Isarlo, Jacques-Henri Lésveque, Man Ray, Pierre de Massot, Michel Perrin, H. Saint-Maurice.

La Varende and the nostalgia of nobility

Jean-Balthazar Mallard Viscount de La Varende (1887-1959), descendant of an old Norman family, was born in the ancestral castle of Chamblac in the Pays d'Ouches. The year of his birth, his father died and his mother, Brittany, returned living in Rennes. La Varende was raised by his grandfather, the navy Admiral Langle. Unable to be a sailor because of a weak heart, he entered the Beaux-Arts in Paris. Returning from the war of 1914-1918 when he was mobilized as a medic and hospital porter, he moved to the castle of Chamblac. He built a collection of ship models, maintained his property, married and began writing short stories and novels. If he produced a lot, he had difficulties getting published. His first success came in 1937 with the reissue by Plon of Nez-de-cuir, gentilhomme d'amour (Nose-of-leather, a gentleman of love) published the previous year by Maugard in Rouen. La Varende portrayed a Count having a facial injury received during the war of 1814, who became a local Don Juan and fell in love with the only woman who resisted him. With Le Centaure de Dieu (God's Centaur), he won the Grand Prix du Roman of the French Academy in 1938. La Varende built a regionalist but also epic work, full of great heroic figures. He also wrote many historical books. In 1939, while the second war broke out, La Varende lost his wife. He leaved then retired in his castle, publishing short stories in newspapers mostly collaborationists. In 1941, he entered the Academie Goncourt but resigned two years later, avoiding a probable exclusion. La Varende is accused to have sympathy for Nazi Germany. Adamant man, he always maintained his royalist convictions, without compromising himself with the Vichy government. Nostalgic of a bygone era, he wrote about his passions: Normandy, seas and nobility.

Actuellement la librairie Loliée propose les éditions originales suivantes :

• Nez-de-Cuir, gentilhomme d'amour. Rouen, Maugard, 1936, in-4, demi-maroquin havane à coins, dos à nerfs orné de croisillons dorés, tête dorée, couverture et dos conservés (Huser). Exemplaire sur vergé teinté.
• Le Centaure de Dieu. Roman. Paris, Grasset, 1938, in-12, broché. Un des 75 exemplaire sur pur fil, celui-ci nominatif.
• Le Roi d'Ecosse (Provinciale). Paris, grasset, 1941, broché. Un des 13 premiers exemplaires sur Japon impérial.
• L'Homme aux gants de toile. Paris, Grasset, 1943, in-12, broché. Un des 30 exemplaires sur vélin pur chiffon. Frontispice en camaïeu de Louis-Joseph Soulas.
• Indulgence plénière. Paris, Grasset, in-12, broché. Un des 52 exemplaire sur Montval.
• La Dernière fête. Paris, Flammarion, 1953, fort in-12, broché. Un des 145 premiers exemplaires sur pur fil d'Arches, celui-ci tiré pour la société des bibliophiles "Les Amis des Beaux-Livres".

Militant atheism of The Marquis de Sade

Dialogue Between a Priest and a Dying Man, dated 1782, is the oldest manuscript known of the Marquis de Sade (1740-1814). The "divine" Marquis makes a philosophical dialogue between a clergyman and a libertine. He strives to prove the nonexistence of God and exposes his militant atheism. The reason is ultimately the only guarantor of human morality :

"Reason, sir - yes, our reason alone should warn us that harm done our fellows can never bring happiness to us; and our heart, that contributing to their felicity is the greatest joy Nature has accorded us on earth; the entirety of human morals is contained in this one phrase: Render others as happy as one desires oneself to be, and never inflict more pain upon them than one would like to receive at their hands.

There you are, my friend, those are the only principles we should observe, and you need neither god nor religion to appreciate and subscribe to them, you need only have a good heart. But I feel my strength ebbing away; preacher, put away your prejudices, unbend, be a man, be human, without fear and without hope forget your gods and your religions too: they are none of them good for anything but to set man at odds with man, and the mere name of these horrors has caused greater loss of life on earth than all other wars and all other plagues combined. Renounce the idea of another world; there is none, but do not renounce the pleasure of being happy and of making for happiness in this. Nature offers you no other way of doubling your existence, of extending it. - My friend, lewd pleasures were ever dearer to me than anything else, I have idolized them all my life and my wish has been to end it in their bosom; my end draws near, six women lovelier than the light of day are waiting in the chamber adjoining, I have reserved them for this moment, partake of the feast with me, following my example embrace them instead of the vain sophistries of superstition, under their caresses strive for a little while to forget your hypocritical beliefs.

NOTE : The dying man rang, the women entered; and after he had been a little while in their arms the preacher became one whom Nature had corrupted, all because he had not succeeded in explaining what a corrupt nature is."

Currently, the librairie Loliée Offers :

• Sade (Donatien Alphonse François, dit le Marquis de). Dialogue entre un prêtre et un moribond. Publié pour la première fois sur le manuscrit autographe inédit avec un avant-propos et des notes de Maurice Heine. Paris, Stendhal et Compagnie, 1926, small in-4, cover. First edition. One of the 20 first copies on Imperial Japan paper.
• Sauvage (Sylvain) - Sade (Donatien Alphonse François, dit le Marquis de). Ernestine. Paris, J. Fort, 1926, in-8, binding . 9 etchings and a frontispiece in colors by Sylvain Sauvage. Limited to 576 copies. One of the 12 copies on Imperial Japan paper especially published for Edouard Champion - copy without the watercolour. A suite of etchings plus a refused etching, a final suite in black of the etchings, and a refused etching printed in colours.
• [Sade] Paulhan (Jean). Le Marquis de Sade et sa complice ou les revanches de la pudeur. Paris, Lilac, 1951, in-12. First edition. Copy on Johannot paper.

Visual language of Jean Dubuffet

Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) is famous for his paintings and installations that made him one of the first figures of Art Brut. He is also an author who enjoyed playing with syntactic forms of language. His first book, Ler dla canpane issued in 1948. Through his publications, Dubuffet mixed poetry, portmanteau words and puns to study how language works in conjunction with typography and layout. Between 1962 and 1974, he worked on the serie of l'Hourloupe, a project involving paintings, sculptures, installations and texts. These creations are distinguished by flat areas of red, blue, white and black like the illustrations made for La Botte à Nique, published in 1973. Near the Surrealists in the 40s, then a member of the College of Pataphysics in the 60s, Jean Dubuffet always reflected on language's concepts. He invented a poetic and visual slang still unique.

Currently, the librairie loliée offers :

• [Dubuffet (Jean)] - (Paulhan (Jean). Lettre à Jean Dubuffet. Paris, Galerie René Drouin, 1944, booklet in-8. Catalogue of the exhibition of paintings and drawings by Jean Dubuffet at the galerie Drouin from october to novembrer 1944. First edition of the preface by Jean Paulhan.
• [Dubuffet (Jean)] - Guillevic. Elégies. Avec une lithographie de Jean Dubuffet. Paris, Le Calligraphe, 1946, in-8. First edition with an original lithograph in colors by Dubuffet. Limited to 306 copies on Rives paper. Copy with a dedication from the author to the writer Alain Bosquet.
• Dubuffet (Jean). Ler dla canpane. Paris, l’Art Brut, 1948, in-12. Firt edition of the first book written by Dubuffet . 6 engravings in black.
• Dubuffet (Jean) - Paulhan (Jean). La Métromanie ou les dessous de la Capitale. Par J. Paulhan, calligraphié et orné de dessins par son ami J. Dubuffet. Paris, s.é., 1949, in-12 , publisher's binding. First edition limited to 150 copies, entirely lithographed.
  
• Dubuffet (Jean). Paintings by Jean Dubuffet. New York, Pierre Matisse Gallery, 1950, booklet in-8 , illustrated cover. Catalogue with 4 original lithographs by Dubuffet.
• [Dubuffet (Jean)] – Limbour (Georges). L’Art Brut de Jean Dubuffet. Tableau bon levain à vous de cuire la pâte. Paris, Drouin, 1953, in-4, cover and case. First edition. Many reproductions in black and colors.
  
• Dubuffet (Jean) – Volboudt (Pierre). Les Assemblages de Jean Dubuffet, signes Sols Sorts par Pierre Volboudt. Paris, F. Hazan, 1958, in-4, in leaves, publisher's case. Edition with 17 plates in black and colors. Limited to 770 copies, this one on white velum paper.
  
• Dubuffet (Jean). La Fleur de Barbe. S.l., s.n.é., 1960, in-folio, in leaves, folder. 4 compositions by Jean Dubuffet. Limited to 500 copies on Arches paper, this one with a dedication to the writer and member of the college of pataphysics Maurice Saillet.
• Dubuffet (Jean). L’Hourloupe. Gouaches. Paris, Galerie Claude Bernard, 1964, small in-4, publisher's binding. Catalogue publisehd for the exhibition of gouaches by Dubuffet at the Gallery Claude Bernard in december 1964. Text by Hubert Damisch.
• Dubuffet (Jean). Parade Funèbre pour Charles Estienne. Paris, Jeanne Bucher, 1967, in-4, illustrated cover. Édition with black and white illustrations by Dubuffet. Limited to 450 copies.
• Dubuffet (Jean). La Botte à Nique. Genève, Albert Skira, Les Sentiers de la Création, 1973, in-8, in leaves, illustrated cover, publisher's folder and case . First edition originale with numerous illustrations in colors by Dubuffet. One of the 165 copies on "Arches à la cuve" paper, mumbered and signed by the artist, including a serigraph in colors separately presented.