An important document from Breton, in the midst of his Dadaist period and at the dawn of his friendship with Éluard, indicating to the latter the address of the Certâ café which would host the bi-weekly meetings of the future surrealist group.
6.000€
André Breton (1896.1966)
Autographed card signed to Paul Éluard.
A page in-12° on the back of a folkloric view.
Paris. December 1919 [according to the postmark]. Wednesday evening.
Unpublished map of the Breton-Éluard correspondence.
An important document by Breton, written during his Dadaist period and at the dawn of his friendship with Éluard, indicating to the latter the address of the Café Certâ, which would host the bi-weekly meetings of the future Surrealist group. This is the very first handwritten mention of the café founded by the Basque writer Certâ.
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“My dear Paul Eluard, this café is decidedly lacking in comfort. In the future, on the following Wednesdays and Saturdays, we will meet from 5:30 to 7 at Certa's , Passage de l'Opéra, Galerie du Baromètre (it's at the entrance to the Théâtre Moderne). I think these gatherings will be quite pleasant. Especially since Madame Grindel doesn't hesitate to come whenever she's feeling a bit sensible. Please give her my regards. I am very much yours. Until next time? André Breton.”
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It was in the spring of 1919 that André Breton sought to establish contact with Paul Éluard. He invited him to a reading of Anicet at the Hôtel des Grands Hommes, on the Place du Panthéon. Subsequently, Breton contributed several texts to the small journal Proverbe , founded by Éluard.
At the end of 1919, in the midst of the transition of the Dadaist movement, Breton decided to gather his companions at the Certâ , a café and wine bar in the Passage de l'Opéra, immortalized after its disappearance by Aragon in Le Paysan de Paris : " It was in this place that, towards the end of 1919, André Breton and I decided to gather our friends from now on, out of hatred for Montparnasse and Montmartre, out of a taste for the ambiguity of the passages and seduced no doubt by an unusual setting which was to become so familiar to us; it was the place which was the main seat of the Dada meetings ."