Max Ernst, Défais ton sac, mon brave (from: La femme 100 têtes)

La femme 100 têtes was the first of 3 collage novels designed by Max Ernst. Nine chapters ‘tell’ the story of a woman. Each page contains a single print with a brief subtitle (the legend), so the reader must follow the trail of the illustrations that tell the story. The combinations of scientific instruments and floating figures and  landscapes with unexpected interiors define the dream world identified so closely with surrealism.

The elements he [Max Ernst] borrows are, above all, elements that have been drawn, and it is the drawing that is most frequently replaced by collage. Here collage becomes a poetic process, perfectly opposable in its aims to the collage of the Cubists, which is primarily realistic in intention. Max Ernst borrows his elements principally from printed drawings, drawings for advertisements, dictionary illustrations, popular images, newspaper photographs. He blends them so skilfully into his pictures that sometimes one hardly suspects their presence… – Louis Aragon, from Max Ernst, peintre des illusions (1923).

Description: (Hundred Headless Woman) First printing of the second edition. #45 in a limited & hand numbered printing of 1000 copies. Paperback copy, stiff wraps with “Review copy” slip laid in. Published in association with George Wittemborn, N.Y. Minor wear to corners and edges, otherwise very good. RARE!

SOLD

La femme 100 têtes Avis au lecteur par André Breton
Ernst, Max

Publisher: Editions De L’oeil, Paris
Publication Date: 1956
Binding: Paperback
Book Condition: Very Good
Edition: First Thus

· Category: Sold ·