ELUARD PAUL [Valentine Hugo / binding by Pierre-Lucien Marti - Lot 74

ELUARD PAUL [Valentine Hugo / binding by Pierre-Lucien Martin]. Le Phenix Paris, G.L.M., 1952, In-8 (270×186 mm), 66 pp. bound in box sable mosaiced with box perle, anthracite, burgundy, pink coral and red forming a geometrical interlace extending over the spine, long spine, red suede lining and endpapers, gilt edges on witnesses, covers and spine preserved, half-box sable folder, lined case (binding signed Pierre-Lucien Martin,1985). Illustrated with 18 drawings by Valentine Hugo, the cover illustration being repeated on the title. One of a handful of contributor's copies on various papers (this one a tobacco-colored vellum) in addition to the 1,425 copies of the edition, this one signed by Paul Éluard and Valentine Hugo. Our copy includes a long full-page letter from Valentine Hugo to Georges and Myrtille Hugnet: "Exemplaire de Georges Hugnet. For Georges and Myrtille these pictures illustrating Le Phénix, which Paul was so happy with during the last year of his life. I had greatly embellished the woman he had married a few months before my work began, and he told me in 1952: "What man wouldn't be happy to see idealized the one to whom his life is linked." There are here only 5 slightly resembling faces of her: page 12 (in Mexico, where she sought and found him), p. 26 (Paul had lent me a photo of her in her mother's arms), p. 48, p. 54, p. 56, for Sérénité́ where it seems to me that I have foreseen that she may be the actual serenité́ of this woman who has since proved so bitter and evil. Her name was Dominique Lemort. My friends, I embrace you. Valentine Hugo". Le Phénix was the last collection by Éluard (1895-1952) published during his lifetime. Valentine Hugo (1887-1968) was Éluard's mistress for a time, when Gala left him for Dali. A painter and illustrator, she took part in the activities of the French Surrealist group from 1930. In particular, she illustrated the reprint of Achim von Arnim's Contes Bizarres, prefaced by André Breton in 1933. The first historian of the Dada movement, Georges Hugnet (1906-1974), a Surrealist and publisher, was above all in search of a poetic and graphic absolute. He worked with decals, photomontages, collages (La Septième Face du Dé, 1936), cut-outs and various assemblages. He was also one of the architects behind the creation of Éditions de Minuit in 1941. Magnificent geometric and "electric" binding by P.-L. Martin: featured in the Pierre-Lucien Martin exhibition, Bibliothèque Wittockiana, Brussels, 1987, no. 208 (here we reproduce the entry in the November 2008 Nicaise bookshop catalog, no. 3). Let's add that "Pierre-Lucien Martin (Born in Corancy in 1913), trained at the Estienne school between 1928 and 1931, Pierre-Lucien Martin was first a worker in industrial bookbinding. At Brodart et Taupin, he took part in research for the development of the "Jotau process", a molded bakelite cover, which brought him closer to the modern art-object binding. His meeting with bookbinder Alphonse-Jules Gonon was decisive in his choices. He set up his own workshop in 1940, and from then on combined artistic research with refined technique; his compositions are primarily optical, rather than plastic, with highly elaborate constructions using rulers and compasses, and a rejection of any kind of lyrical imagination. His restricted palettes, and even monochrome hues, emphasize the drawing, even more sublimely when he introduces hollows and reliefs. Awarded the "original binding" prize in 1948, he created over two thousand works. He died in Paris in September 1985." (Claude Blaizot, Pierre-Lucien Martin et la reliure moderne). The binding shown here is very similar, though more colorful, to the one used on an author's copy, printed on green paper, of André Breton's Les pas perdus, presented at Tajan on December 10, 2002. This copy was part of the Jean-Pierre Guillaume library dispersed in May 1995 under N°179 (Claude Blaizot expert). Born June 9, 1930 - died April 26, 1995, Jean-Pierre Guillaume was editor of La Revue Médicale. His library of modern first editions and illustrated books was entirely bound by his friend Pierre-Lucien Martin, constituting a unique collection representative of the bookbinder's creativity. Expert : Christophe SUDRE