April 28, 2010

Surrealist tracts from the Aragon case

In 1927, following Paul Eluard and with André Breton, his two friends from Surrealism, Louis Aragon joined the Communist Party. In 1930, he went to the USSR, to represent the Surrealists Congress of Revolutionary Writers in Kharkov. Vladimir Mayakovsky, critic of the new regime, has just committed suicide. The Communists of strict obedience suspect the surrealists to drift to Trotskyism and anarchism. Aragon took sides and, on his return to France, published a poem, Front Rouge, which broke with surrealism aesthetic. His tone is provocative [Pliez les réverbères comme des fétus de pailles / Faites valser les kiosques les bancs les fontaines Wallace / Descendez les flics / Camarades / descendez les flics / Plus loin plus loin vers l'ouest où dorment / les enfants riches et les putains de première classe/ Dépasse la Madeleine Prolétariat/ Que ta fureur balaye l'Élysée] and, in 1931, Aragon is charged for inciting to murder.
If Breton defends him by publishing L'Affaire Aragon, he also denounced in Misère de la poésie how Front Rouge is "poetically regressive". The break -up between Surrealists and Aragon is consumed.

Currently, the librairie Loliée offers :
  • Certificat. Paris, 1932. 1 leaf in-4, recto. Printed in black on green paper. Famous tract against Aragon signed by Paul Eluard who ends with a Lautreamont quote : « Toute l’eau de la mer ne suffirait pas à laver une tache de sang intellectuelle. »
  • L’Affaire Aragon. Paris, january 1932. 2 leaves in-4, the second removable, printed in red on velum white paper. Tract asking for solidarity with Aragon, signed by 12 members of the movement.
  • Paillasse ! (Fin de « l’affaire Aragon »). Paris, Éditions Surréalistes, March 1932. stapled booklet, in-8. Pamphlet against Aragon by Char, Crevel, Dali, Eluard, Ernst, Péret, Tanguy et Tzara.

April 14, 2010

Catalogue 2010

The librairie Loliée offers you to download the catalogue 2010 :

April 01, 2010

Salammbô illustrated by Rochegrosse

Georges-Antoine Rochegrosse (1859-1938) grew up surrounded by artists and man of letters. His widowed mother remarried the poet Théodore de Banville, then in the top of his celebrity.
In the family apartment, the young Rochegrosse met with the intellectual elite of the time: Théophile Gautier, Charles Baudelaire and the Parnassians whom Banville is one of the leaders. From childhood, he liked to draw and his sketches are subjected to passing friends. Gustave Flaubert, charmed by a set of views of Carthage, said incidentally :
- Once you have the talent, I'll order you the illustrations of Salammbô.

This remark as a joke come true though 25 years later when the publisher Ferroud inquired Rochegrosse, now established and recognized, to illustrate Salammbô. It was in Barbizon, village of the pre-impressionists, that the illustrator achieved his work, supported by his friends, including the actress Berthe Bady who helped to make a relief map of Carthage inspired by Flaubert's description in the novel's opening. To give life to Salammbô, Rochegrosse is inspired by the bust of the Lady of Elche, discovered in 1897. In the Orientalist's style, Rochegrosse worked with retail the charm of local colours and highlighted what the novel contains of non-European exoticism.
(Source : Georges Rochegrosse, sa vie, son œuvre par J. Valmy-Baysse - Paris, F. Juven, 1910)

Currently, the librairie Loliée offers :
  • Rochegrosse (Georges) - Flaubert (Gustave). Salammbô. Compositions de Georges Rochegrosse, gravées à l’eau-forte par Champollion. Préface de Léon Hennique. Paris, Ferroud, 1900, 2 volumes, large in-8, full Levant binding by Gruel. First impression. 52 compositions in black. Exemplaire H.C. on vvellum paper with two more states of the engravings.