Facile : an exceptional encounter between Paul Eluard and Man Ray

Facile is one of those books that mark time and which go through decades. Outcome of the collaboration between Paul Éluard and Man Ray, under the aegis of the surrealist publisher Guy Lévis-Mano, the book gives 12 poems accompanied by 12 heliogravures centered on the figure of Nusch Éluard, muse and wife of the poet. The harmonic resonance that surfaces from these pages builds an eroticism that has lost none of his poetic and visual enchantment.

 Currently, the librairie Loliée offers :

• [MAN RAY] - ÉLUARD (Paul). Facile. Paris, G.L.M., 1935. small in-4° in leaves, illustrated cover. First edition of 12 poems by Paul Éluard illustrated in text with 12 heliogravures by Man Ray of Nusch Éluard's body. Limited to 1 225 copies. One of the 1 200 copies on velum paper.

Catherine Pozzi : the purity of classical poetry

It is in 1987, with the publication of her journal, that the work and the character of Catherine Pozzi (1882-1934) is rediscovered. Born into an aristocratic and wealthy family, the young woman, bright and well-educated, met at home José-Maria de Heredia, Paul Bourget. After studying with tutors, she completed her education spending one year at Oxford. At 25, she married the succesful playwright Edouard Bourdet, and of that consensual union, was born a son, Claude. A year after ther birth, the young mother experiencing the first symptoms of tuberculosis. Catherine Pozzi resumed her studies and got the baccalaureate at the age of 37. In 1920, she began a relationship with Paul Valéry that lasted 8 years. The important correspondence between the two lovers, published by Gallimard in 2006, shows the the tumultuous of the relation and also the influence that the author had on Catherine Pozzi's work. The poet died in Paris in 1934, undermined by disease and drugs.

Of her publications, essentially posthumous, we note, in addition to her journal, her correspondences with Jean Paulhan and Rainer Maria Rilke. If her work is the reflect of a time and of her skills, her poetry, although dazzling, is marked with a classicism and purity worthy of the greatests. The collection Poèmes, published in 1935, gives a reading of six pieces ; the last "Nyx" ("night" in Greek) was composed at one go, a month before the death of the poet :

O you, my nights, O long-awaited black-
ness, O proud country, O obstinate sec-
rets, O long looks, O thundering clouds
O flight beyond skies which are closed

O great desire, O scattered surprise
O beautiful journey of th’ enchanted sprite
O worst evil, O grace that flies
O open door where we enter night

I don’t know why I die today
Before th’ eternal rest above.
I don’t know for whom I’m prey
 I don’t know for whom I’m love.

Currently, the librairie Loliée offers :

• POZZI (Catherine). Poèmes. Paris, Mesures, s.d. [1935], booklet in-8. First Edition. Limited to 410 copies, one of the first 10 on Holland paper.

Discovering Baudouin Luquet

Baudouin Luquet, born in 1939 in Amiens, where he began studying at the Fine Arts School, went in Paris at the Ecole Nationale des Arts Décoratifs. There, He followed the class of Marcel Gromaire and graduated in 1961. At that time, he painted mostly landscapes. He completed his education by spending a year at the Fine Arts School of Krakow. On his return, he produces "black books" where he draws alternately human figures, circles, trees and compositions in the style of that of Alberto Magnelli. He tries to move away from figuration and, throughout the 60s, his experiences led him to paint landscapes where colored field and geometric figures tend to be a "state" of nature.

Baudouin Luquet, then, eliminates any reference to reality and moved into abstraction. He realizes, in 1975, the series: Tribute to Mallarmé, Samples, Instants, and in the 80's, In Suspense.  These "assemblages" are run from preparatory drawings on paper or can be traced directly to the walls of the studio to include pre-thought.

Baudouin Luquet also produces photomontages that combine photographs and drawings. The image (shots executed during his travels in Italy, Tunisia, Spain) is repeated and assembled differently from the original pattern. The identity of the picture is lost to become a structural element of the set. These photomontages evoke the dynamics of "visual images" of Moholy-Nagy.

Currently and till the 24th of October, the library Loliée offers an exhibition of flyers "caviardés", executed in the 60, and "folds" drawings (in the 70s) presenting the work of the artist, based on transformation of the support and linear and geometric construction.