Ici repose
*Ici repose* is a characteristic Fata Morgana publication, bringing together the poetic voice of Claude Sernet with a frontispiece and, in the deluxe copies, an original colour etching by Jacques Hérold. It belongs to that discreet yet highly charged category of books in which text and image do more than merely coexist: they deepen one another. The restrained format, issued loose in wrappers with flaps, perfectly suits the Montpellier press aesthetic of the 1960s. Sernet, whose poetry often maintains a tone of inward tension, finds here an especially apt visual counterpart in Hérold. The latter brings with him the legacy of Surrealism, though in a concentrated graphic form. The result is a bibliophilic edition in which modern poetry and artists’ printmaking meet with rare elegance. The Arches copies with signed etching make the book all the more desirable for collectors.
Quantity
Sernet, Claude
Hérold, Jacques
Ici repose
1967 | Montpellier | Fata Morgana
A restrained yet remarkably well-positioned Fata Morgana edition, in which Claude Sernet and Jacques Hérold meet within a bibliophilic object of great sensitivity. The combination of deluxe issue, signed etching, and author’s signature makes this copy especially compelling.
*Ici repose* is a characteristic Fata Morgana publication, bringing together the poetic voice of Claude Sernet with a frontispiece and, in the deluxe copies, an original colour etching by Jacques Hérold. It belongs to that discreet yet highly charged category of books in which text and image do more than merely coexist: they deepen one another. The restrained format, issued loose in wrappers with flaps, perfectly suits the Montpellier press aesthetic of the 1960s. Sernet, whose poetry often maintains a tone of inward tension, finds here an especially apt visual counterpart in Hérold. The latter brings with him the legacy of Surrealism, though in a concentrated graphic form. The result is a bibliophilic edition in which modern poetry and artists’ printmaking meet with rare elegance. The Arches copies with signed etching make the book all the more desirable for collectors.
€400
Condition Report:
In-Depth Study
References & Bibliography
Format
In-8 (Octavo) approx. 20 × 26 cm
Edition Particulars
One of 60 copies among the 80 deluxe Arches issues, with a signed and justified original colour etching; copy signed by the author on the justification page.
Print Run
420
Copy Number
No. 70
Paper
Arches
Inscription
Signed by the Author,Signed by the Illustrator
1
Edition Particulars:
We welcome private inquiries, collaborations with institutions, and acquisition requests. Each message is treated with discretion and respect. We welcome private inquiries, collaborations with institutions, and acquisition requests.
1
Print Run:
Condition Report:
1
Copy Number:
Condition Report:
1
Paper:
Condition Report:
1
Signed:
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Product DETAIL
The title suggests a poetic meditation on rest, absence, memory, and the proximity of death. The volume most likely centres not on narrative development but on a sequence of poems or brief lyrical units in which an inward voice speaks out of loss, silence, or reflection. The book is set not in a concrete narrative environment but in a mental and emotional space. Its core seems to lie in the tension between presence and erasure, between what still speaks and what has already fallen silent. The reader is thus led through a compact, concentrated poetic world in which every formulation carries weight. Jacques Hérold’s frontispiece reinforces that meditative and faintly troubling tone. The overall atmosphere is grave, restrained, and modern, with affinities to postwar lyric poetry and a Surrealist sensibility.
Char, Rene · Stael, Nicolas de
Arrière-histoire du poème pulvérisé
*Arrière-histoire du poème pulvérisé* is a later illustrated edition of a key text in which René Char looks back on the genesis and inner background of *Le Poème pulvérisé*. Published in 1972 by Imprimerie Union, it opens with a colour frontispiece by Nicolas de Staël. The pairing of Char and de Staël is especially charged: two post-war voices, each seeking concentration, clarity, and rupture in his own medium. This copy is one of only six hors commerce copies on Arches and is signed. The autograph presentation inscription to Doctor Marcel Zara, with poetic quotation and October 1972 dating, makes it a deeply personal copy.
Ill Book
€920
Ruscha, Edward · Ruscha, Ed
Some Los Angeles Apartments
Some Los Angeles Apartments is one of Ed Ruscha’s iconic early artist’s books, devoted to the banal architecture of Los Angeles. Instead of monuments, drama or urban glamour, Ruscha shows ordinary apartment buildings, coolly photographed and without visible sentimentality. This second edition of 1970, printed in 3,000 unnumbered copies, confirms the wider circulation of his conceptual book form. The small format, sober wrappers and original glassine wrapper make it an essential Ruscha object.
Ill Book
€950
Char, Rene · Pierre Andre Benoit (PAB)
Les Dentelles de Montmirail
Les Dentelles de Montmirail is one of the characteristic small masterpieces born of the collaboration between René Char and PAB. It was published in 1960 between L’Isle-sur-Sorgue and Alès, two places that immediately evoke the geography of Char and that of Pierre André Benoit. The edition joins Char’s brief, aphoristic lyric voice to five natural impressions from Montmirail, so that text and matter quite literally meet. With PAB, poetry often takes on an intimate, almost handmade form, and that quality is especially palpable here. The limited issue on Arches heightens the book’s discreet yet unmistakable bibliophile character. This copy gains further importance from the autograph inscription to Dr Marcel Zara, far more than a routine dedication and almost readable as a small autonomous poem. For collectors, it is an exemplary PAB production in which landscape, trace, inscription, and poem become a single object.
Ill Book
€2,250
René Char, Georges Braque · Lachaud, Mariette · Pierre Andre Benoit (PAB)
Ainsi va l'amitié
What makes this copy especially memorable is not only its tiny limitation but the way it fixes three friendships at once: that between Char and Braque, that between Char and PAB, and that of all of them with the image that outlives them. The eight original photographs are not an illustrative supplement but the true bearers of presence; they preserve gazes, workspaces, and silences. The fact that PAB and Mariette Lachaud signed this copy gives it an almost confidential status, as though the circle of makers were still present within the book. In such editions, bibliophily becomes more than rarity alone: it becomes a form of shared memory.
