André BRETON - Autograph letter signed to Nelly KAPLAN.

André Breton (1896.1966).

Autograph letter signed to Nelly Kaplan.

Two pages large in-4°. Stamped and canceled autograph envelope.

Paris. December 31, 1956.

“It may be that I was disturbed by your beauty. »

Astonishing letter from Breton, seducer, praising the beauty of Nelly Kaplan, the genesis of their love affair in the making.

“ I began by being deeply touched by your memory and your very precise allusion to the remarks (disjointed, through my fault) that we were able to exchange within the framework of a pre-Columbian exhibition. First of all, defying ridicule, I must make a little confession to you. When at the end of this exhibition you invited me to cross the rue de Rivoli to introduce myself to someone, shame, yes, shame of me, I did not hear the name of this person and I did not I'm not allowed to make you repeat it (as we don't shy away from it in America, and we're right!). This caused me to find myself unexampled and practically mute – even though it would have been a hundred times better to remain silent completely – in front of this same person, whom I was torn between the illusion of recognizing and impossibility of establishing who she was. My disgrace, at that moment, was brought to its height by far too flattering remarks which came to me from her and which I already endure very badly in other circumstances. Still, I was too helpless to face it. I no longer know, from a distance, how long it took me to suppose and above all convince myself that you had been able to put me in the presence of Abel Gance . Will you please apologize to him as soon as possible. His face alone is not one we have the right to forget. What he was kind enough to tell me, without taking into account my embarrassment that you and he can now measure, finds a way to delight me beyond confusion. Since then, I have sometimes wondered about the possible causes of this mishap. If you allow me to be completely sincere, I may have been disturbed by your beauty and by the circumstances in which we came to speak. I prefer to think that than to admit that I was the victim of these powers who have shown me enough of their hostility about the "magical art" and which I was able to awaken in you (the devil only knows Why…). However, it is true that you had uttered the word polyvision, which should have been enough to lift the veil of these few minutes. No, definitely, I don't understand. And now it is under the name “Magirama” that your show is presented. Let's dream again. About this spectacle, which – as little as I know to be influenced – I insisted on attending alone, let me tell you that it overwhelmed me. I absolutely share your hopes regarding the artistic formula that emerges. For me it makes the strident return of swallows in our sky (…) Without a doubt – and thanks be to you – a new structure of time is here in the making , which scientists and philosophers are working hard to discover but which will undoubtedly only reveal itself from new affective states, of the order of those that Abel Gance and you arouse precisely. “J'accuse”, which I am lucky today to have perhaps not known in its initial version, is a work which would be enough to consecrate for the greatest the one who conceived and executed it. Will you tell him that I proclaim his genius and, on a private level, that I have a big place for him in my heart. Nelly Kaplan, I kiss your hands. I wish you everything you can aspire to. The Earth Kingdom is yours. André Breton. »

A few days after this letter, at the end of January 1957, Breton wrote to Nelly Kaplan: “ I think about you endlessly. I am considering, I am trying to consider as calmly as possible the means to dominate the situation. Do not forget that I love you. »

Breton mentions at the end of the letter the silent film directed by Abel Gance in 1919, J'accuse .