Corps Perdu
Paris: Fragrance, 1950.
Ten Poems by the West Indian (Martinique) poet Aime Cesaire, together with an abundance of finely printed illustrations by Picasso: an etched title on the cover, a fine original etching/drypoint portrait frontispiece, 10 aquatints each illustrating a poem title, and 20 drypoint engravings, all on Montval wove paper with a "Corps Perdu" watermark. Folio. Folded sheets, loose as issued, in original white printed paper wrappers; housed in a vellum-backed orange board chemise and orange board slipcase. One skillfully mended repair on rear paper wrapper, otherwise an immaculate copy in very fine condition.
Limited first edition. From a total printing of 219 copies, there are five distinct variants on different papers, but this is perhaps the most special iteration of this unusual book -- not listed on the limitation page -- being number I of only III copies reserved for the artist himself; inscribed by Picasso in blue & red pencil on the limitation page to Felia Leal (a close friend and the publisher of this edition), and containing an entire extra suite of all 32 plates printed on Vieux Japon, in a folder which Picasso has handwritten "Suite de Corps Perdu, Picasso" in blue pencil.
Cesaire was the "figurehead of the 1930s Negritude movement in France, a group of writers who hoped to foster a sense of shared heritage throughout the African diaspora, reasserting their identities in opposition to Western colonial perspectives" (MoMA). Picasso became friendly with Cesaire when they met in Poland at the 1948 Communist-led World Congress of Intellectuals for Peace, and they soon collaborated on this important book. Cesaire wrote the poems (intertwined surrealistic pieces that explore themes related to dreams, the unconscious, and the irrational. A powerful, surrealist exploration of the colonial legacy of dispossession and violence, calling for a radical renewal of identity through the reclamation of the "lost body" of the black individual and collective) and Picasso created the spare drawings (a fusion of male and female sexual organs with plant and insect-inspired forms, evocative of the Cuban painter Wilfredo Lam). -- Bloch 632-633; Baer 840-871; Cramer 56.
"Crowned Poet," the excellent frontispiece, was used for the poster for the first Congress of Black Writers and Artists, organized by Presence Africaine at the Sorbonne in 1956.
Illustrator: Picasso
Binding: Unbound
Condition: Fine
Edition: Limited
Language: English
Price: $135,000.00
Item #331546