André BRETON justifies the exclusion of Victor BRAUNER from the surrealist group.

André Breton (1896.1966)

Autograph letter (draft) to Pierre Demarne.

Three pages in-4° on letterhead from Solution Surrealiste and Cause.

Paris. November 10, 1948.

“No mediocre interest can oppose me to Brauner […] What opposes me to him today is of another order and is due to the work of disintegration to which I reproach him for indulging at the expense of the ideas which reunite. »

Brauner and Matta excluded – the surrealist purge.

Important document by Breton attempting to justify the recent exclusion of Victor Brauner from the surrealist group. Detailing the dissensions between him and the Romanian painter and returning to the ousting of the Chilean artist Roberto Matta, the surrealist leader denounces the clans and considers that his movement is in mortal danger.

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 “My dear friend, I am all the more willing to provide you with these personal clarifications since you were the only one in Paris to ask me for them. By submitting last Wednesday to “Surrealist Solution” the copy of the letter that I addressed to Brauner, it seems to me that I sufficiently showed my desire not to take anyone by surprise . If this letter had the effect of rushing certain members of our group to Brauner in order to dissuade him from justifying himself and if none of them even took the trouble to notify me of this approach any more than to discussing with me his own sensitive reactions to the subject of my letter, this unfortunately only confirmed my worst apprehensions (not only had the incriminated “fractional work” been undertaken a long time ago but it was well and truly accomplished ) . It was almost enough for me to enter this café on Monday to gauge the extent of the “conjuration” from the seats occupied and the attitudes taken. Explain to me differently that none of those who had to leave this room a few moments later had undertaken anything beforehand with me to try to limit the damage: I say that the hostility towards what Péret and I We were going to say was immediately at its height and already the concerted means to bring everything to the worst. I cannot hide from you the surprise or even the agitation that I felt: several of those whose side I saw so clearly taken were very dear to me and I had counted on them for much more , certainly, than the the affirmation of “surrealism” as a group still alive and even filled with new life-giving blood (something in which I am relatively disinterested due to certain fatalistic considerations, but let's leave that for today). Still, from the movements that were occurring, I understood very quickly that the damage had been done and that it was irreparable.

You will grant me – and it will be granted more generally, I hope – that no mediocre interest can oppose me to Brauner, to whose work I have so long endeavored, around me, to to grant the prominent place that deserved it and for which I “fought” for so long both in France and in America. What opposes me to him today is of another order and is due to the work of disintegration to which I accuse him of engaging at the expense of the ideas that unite us. Whether this activity is fully conscious, whether it can benefit from any attenuating circumstances due to Brauner's very particular psyche, that is not the question: the question is whether it does not endanger mortal what we undertake jointly.

I say that it puts him in mortal danger and I refer essentially to the fact that, from the old inter-group constituted by the current zealots of Brauner, all communication of a nature to interest the whole of our activity has ceased. to reach me for months, that initiatives likely to take surrealism further ( Cause , Salut . surr .) have been either passively endorsed, or disapproved in a more or less open manner. This attests to the formation of a clan acting among us on its own behalf, whether or not this is deliberate on its part. Refusal repeatedly expressed with haughtiness to consider any action on the social level, generalized indifferentism to all areas other than the "poetic" area, total instability of judgment exposing the signatories of a text to more or less deny their signature while regretting of having given it or by expressing very strong subsequent reservations, parasitic creation of links of "friendship" of a so-called elective (necessarily restrictive) nature between such and such, leading those concerned to no longer pay any attention to the various other contributions that can be offered to us (I will give as examples the stifling of André Libérati's message, most poetically remarkable, by those to whom it was first addressed, the reception reserved for Gaston Puel – nevertheless a collaborator of Néon , in addition one of the most active and stimulating of our friends during his recent trip to Paris – reception which he affected and complained to myself, etc.: such are some of the symptoms which characterize the deviation that I am pointing out. In the background, but as the circumstances have just shown very active, the attitude of Brauner which tends by essence and more and more towards the megalomaniacal exaltation of the personality at the expense of everything which can bring us together and uses to imposing, whether on his part it is intentional or not, means of division.

That Brauner rejects (or allows him to reject) the accusation brought against Matta as dictated by "bourgeois morality" does not seem as incomprehensible to me as it does to you, I think that there is a self-reflex on his part - defense on which I cannot explain. It is also well understood, as you say, that no one was obliged to sign the Matta exclusion and the best proof of this is that Alexandrian and Mabille abstained from doing so without causing the slightest incident. Once again, it is the expectations which accompanied Brauner's abstention which, by Péret and me, were deemed unacceptable .

I hope, my dear friend, that I have succeeded in giving you the general “climate” of this affair. I do not believe that the concessions you are recommending are possible nor that the lack of availability comes from me. I remain absolutely committed to the desire for expansion and spiritual enrichment of our circle and to the ideal of ever greater understanding that you invoke. It is very precisely what tends among us to vitiate them at the base that I ask that we attack, even if it would be painful. At your disposal, of course, to talk about it in person and with all my friendship. »

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On October 25, 1948 André Breton quickly voted to exclude the Chilean painter Roberto Matta for “moral ignominy and intellectual disqualification.” » Opposed to this decision which he refused to sign, Victor Brauner was in turn excluded.