Le grand défroissement
An exemplary *livre d’artiste* by Jean Messagier, issued by Éditions Fata Morgana in Montpellier on 14 June 1989, a large quarto of 28 pages. Each copy is hand-enriched by the artist with painted interventions, turning support and pigment into a single body. The publisher’s note speaks of seven interventions, while some descriptions count five—an instructive variance that underscores copy-to-copy individuality. The title is calligraphed by Messagier himself, highlighting the performative nature of the gesture. Printed on Arches and housed in a slipcase, the book protects an intimate encounter with the page. This deluxe tirage of thirty, numbered and signed, offers not illustration but a sequence of acts on paper. *Le grand défroissement* is painting as book.
Quantity
Messagier, Jean
Le grand défroissement
1989 | Montpellier | Fata Morgana
A rare book, fully hand-activated, where Messagier’s gesture turns the page into a field. The alliance of calligraphy, Arches, and in-situ variation makes it a keystone for the collector.
An exemplary *livre d’artiste* by Jean Messagier, issued by Éditions Fata Morgana in Montpellier on 14 June 1989, a large quarto of 28 pages. Each copy is hand-enriched by the artist with painted interventions, turning support and pigment into a single body. The publisher’s note speaks of seven interventions, while some descriptions count five—an instructive variance that underscores copy-to-copy individuality. The title is calligraphed by Messagier himself, highlighting the performative nature of the gesture. Printed on Arches and housed in a slipcase, the book protects an intimate encounter with the page. This deluxe tirage of thirty, numbered and signed, offers not illustration but a sequence of acts on paper. *Le grand défroissement* is painting as book.
€1,320
Condition Report:
In-Depth Study
References & Bibliography
Format
In-4 Carré approx. 27×29 cm
Edition Particulars
One of 30 on Arches; numbered and signed by Messagier; title calligraphed by the artist; with 5 paintings (publisher notes 7; both descriptions circulate).
Print Run
30
Copy Number
No. 23
Paper
Arches
Inscription
Signed by the Author
Product DETAIL
The title suggests an “un-creasing”: an unfolding of paper, colour, and breath. Leaves keep the trace of gesture—stain, sweep, slowness—so reading takes on the tempo of looking. Calligraphy hinges word and movement. Messagier lets the paper speak; Arches carries both transparent washes and saturated pigment. The work prefers nuance to narrative, making each page a snapshot of action.
Michaux, Henri · Bettencourt, Pierre
Arriver à se réveiller
A rare first edition of Arriver à se réveiller, written by Henri Michaux in the tremulous post-war years. The text unfolds as an inward journey toward lucidity, where sleep and waking mirror each other. Printed and published by Pierre Bettencourt in his own workshop, the edition’s small run preserves the work’s intimacy. The title-page vignette, a linocut by Bettencourt, sets a spare, rhythmic visual key that amplifies Michaux’s vigilant, vulnerable tone. This copy is handsomely bound in brown morocco with balsa boards by Miguet, a tactile nod to lightness under tension. For bibliophiles, it is an exemplary union of poetry, craft, and experiment. The volume embodies the independence of the post-war small press and Michaux’s radical sensitivity.
Illustrated Book
€680
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.
Illustrated Book
€920
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.