André BRETON and the InteRnatiOnal Exhibition of Surrealism, EROS.

[André BRETON] – The inteRnatiOnal Exhibition of Surrealism, EROS.

Set of 9 letters (seven LAS and two LS) from painters and artists, requested for the EROS exhibition, addressed to André Breton in 1959.

The international exhibition of Surrealism, EROS, organized by André Breton and Marcel Duchamp at the Daniel Cordier gallery from December 15, 1959, has remained famous.

Jean SCHUSTER, Clovis TROUILLE , Max Walter SVANBERG, Adrien DAX and Hannah HÖCH respond, often with enthusiasm, to Breton's proposal to come and exhibit their works in Paris.

All letters are addressed to André Breton, with the exception of the two letters from Doumayrou addressed to Adrien Dax.

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Jean SCHUSTER. Signed autograph letter. Paris, July 27, 1959. 2 pp. in-4 on Exhibition letterhead.

He lists the people that André Breton must contact and is concerned: “This exhibition seems to me to be terribly wrong with the José Pierre disaster. Shouldn't the Benoîts be entrusted with essential tasks at the start of the school year? They alone seem to me to have enough dynamism, ideas and sense of the collective thing to support you effectively.” Then he explains the meaning of the text he wrote for the catalog: “I would like, in any case, to show that the only right attitude is the passionate attitude because its essence is the return to the Principles, while the other attitudes are falsification or dogmatization of the Principles. Again: the function of poetry, "of a poetry as needed without poems", is to edify all the criteria of life including those of social life (this is how I understand, now, the word d 'order of Lautréamont).”

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Clovis TROUILLE . Signed autograph letter. Paris, October 4, 1959. 1 p. in-4, preserved envelope.

Clovis Trouille offers two paintings: The Red Poet and Dohnancé and his ghosts of lust. But this proposal comes after a reminder of his oppositions with several members of the surrealist group, in particular: “I have to complain first of Marcel Jean who published in “Les Lettres nouvelles” a denigrating article on my painting, illustrated by the bad designer Maurice Henry.”

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Max Walter SVANBERG. 1 autograph letter signed in Swedish and 2 typewritten letters signed in French. Malmö, August 12 – September 2, 1959. 1 ½ p. in-4 autograph and 2 pp. typewritten, envelopes preserved.

Very interesting letters: on August 12, Svanberg accepted the invitation while emphasizing his lack of taste for groups. “I must say that all kinds of groups, through the sad experiences that I have had of them, for me are joined to disgust and pain, and I hope, dear friend, that You, who have my total admiration, me will understand when I say that I do not want to be counted as a member of an organized group. Indeed surrealism is the only art which is capable of arousing my sympathy, and this is why I can with pleasure accept your invitation (then among the independent artists mentioned in your program, who are not organized but in any case actually surrealist creators).”

The second letter, which is both autographed – in Swedish – and typewritten – in French – written after receiving Breton's response, returns to his desire not to be included, which Breton undoubtedly criticized: “that makes me Naturally hurts that you took my opinion of this thing, based on bad experiences, so harshly.” But he reiterates his desire to exhibit if “you, dear friend, and my other surrealist friends so desire.”

Above, he explains: “I must clearly declare my position against abstract-geometric tabudogmatism from Mondrian to the Swedish concretists and neoplasticists of our days.”

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Adrien DAX. Signed autograph letter. Toulouse, September 16, 1959. 2 pp. in-4. With: Guy DOUMAYROU. 2 signed autograph letters addressed to Adrien Dax. [August 27]- September 15, 1959. 1 ½ p. in-12 oblong and 2 pp. in-4, envelopes preserved.

Adrien Dax transmits to André Breton the two letters received from Guy Doumayrou, a proposal for an architectural project for the exhibition at the Cordier gallery, the designs of which he explains. Dax supports the project in particular because “the architecture seems determined less by plastic or utilitarian views than by the desire to satisfy, through it, certain needs of a playful nature.” The project is reproduced in the 1959 exhibition catalog with two pages of explanations by Doumayrou (pp. 92-94).

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Hannah HöCH . Autograph letter signed, in German. Berlin, September 5, 1959. 1 p. folio.

Thanking André Breton for the interest he shows in his work, Hanna Höch happily agrees to participate in the exhibition. She offers Breton a watercolor and an oil entitled The Bride.