Eaux-fortes pour Alcools de Guillaume Apollinaire
In June 1934 Louis Marcoussis completed his remarkable cycle of etchings for Guillaume Apollinaire’s Alcools. Issued small (duodecimo), the suite is loose-leaf in a folder and slipcase devised by the artist. Forty plates make up the set: thirty-four numbered for individual poems, a full-page portrait, a title, a full-page plate for the contents, and three vignettes. Marcoussis renders Apollinaire’s imagery in precise, rhythmic line, balancing lyricism with cubist clarity. The result is among the most coherent graphic readings of Alcools, carefully paced and sequenced. This copy is one of the very scarce author’s copies on Arches wove.
Quantity
Apollinaire, Guillaume
Marcoussis, Louis
Eaux-fortes pour Alcools de Guillaume Apollinaire
1934 | Paris | Marcoussis, Louis
Complete and early-preserved, the portfolio stands out within a very limited circulation. Its status as an author’s copy gives it added weight and provenance. A hinge-moment between poetry and print, as crisp as the line from which it is made.
In June 1934 Louis Marcoussis completed his remarkable cycle of etchings for Guillaume Apollinaire’s Alcools. Issued small (duodecimo), the suite is loose-leaf in a folder and slipcase devised by the artist. Forty plates make up the set: thirty-four numbered for individual poems, a full-page portrait, a title, a full-page plate for the contents, and three vignettes. Marcoussis renders Apollinaire’s imagery in precise, rhythmic line, balancing lyricism with cubist clarity. The result is among the most coherent graphic readings of Alcools, carefully paced and sequenced. This copy is one of the very scarce author’s copies on Arches wove.
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Condition Report:
In-Depth Study
References & Bibliography
Format
In-12 (Duodecimo) approx. 17 × 22 cm
Edition Particulars
One of the two author’s copies (copy B), on Arches wove.
Print Run
78
Copy Number
Ex. B
Paper
vélin d’Arches
Inscription
Signed by the Illustrator
Product DETAIL
Alcools (1913) is a landmark of modern poetry, abandoning fixed frames for free, associative montage. The poems move between memory and modernity, Parisian nights and journeys, love and loss. Marcoussis’ suite follows that arc, condensing motifs into clear, suggestive contours. The aim is not literal illustration but echo, rhythm and counterpoint. Spread across thirty-four poems, the plates form a visual score that accompanies reading. The portfolio thus keeps the text’s openness while offering an autonomous pictorial path.
Éluard, Paul
Au rendez-vous allemand
Au rendez-vous allemand is one of the emblematic collections of Éluard’s wartime poetry. The book appeared in 1944 from Les Éditions de Minuit, the publishing house that, under the Occupation, became a moral landmark of the French literary Resistance. The volume gathers poems in which love, mourning, revolt and hope appear not as abstractions but as immediate necessities under German rule. The frontispiece, a portrait of the poet after Picasso, gives the book a powerful artistic signature: two voices of modern France, poet and artist, stand here in the same struggle. This is an ordinary, unnumbered copy, but signed by Éluard on the first page. That signature makes the book more than a Resistance document: it becomes a tangible witness to literary presence in a historically charged year. For the collector, it unites the clandestine aura of Minuit, Picasso’s name and Éluard’s own hand.
Illustrated Book
€350
Morand, Paul · Hugo, Jean
Les Amis nouveaux
This first separate edition of *Les Amis nouveaux* combines Paul Morand’s swift, ironic prose with nine original copper drypoints by Jean Hugo. The brief novella compresses a love triangle into the tense intimacy of a single dinner. Morand’s controlled dialogue and incisive observations reveal how rivalry can unexpectedly turn into mutual understanding. Hugo accompanies the text with a refined linear vocabulary that heightens its worldly lightness and psychological ambiguity. The bistre or sanguine tones give the prints a warm, almost intimate presence on the page. As a numbered large-paper copy on vergé d’Arches, the book has considerable bibliophilic appeal.
Illustrated Book
€260
Brillat-Savarin, Jean-Anthelme · Dufy, Raoul
Aphorismes et variétés.
An elegant *livre d’artiste* pairing Brillat-Savarin’s witty gastronomic aphorisms with twenty full-page original etchings by Raoul Dufy. Dufy’s airy, musical line lends the text a radiant cadence, turning the maxims into vignettes of conviviality and taste. Limited to 200 copies on Rives wove; this is no. 19, for the subscriber Mr Bernard-Beaumaine. Untrimmed copy with original covers and spine preserved, luxuriously rebound by F. Rousseau in 2001. Clear provenance enhances its appeal. Wrapper slightly toned; box with only the faintest rubbing. A refined encounter between culinary letters and modernist design.
