Le Septième chant. La Mort d’Isidore Ducasse
With *Le Septième chant. La Mort d’Isidore Ducasse*, Alain Jouffroy composes an incantatory elegy to the tutelary figure of Lautréamont. Issued in 1974 by the Société internationale d’art du XXe siècle, the book is enriched with four original etchings and aquatints by André Masson. The frontispiece, printed in red, sets a fiery, visionary, corporeal tone. Large in scale, issued as loose leaves in wrappers with chemise and slipcase, it belongs to the grand tradition of the livre d’artiste. The encounter between Jouffroy’s ardent prose and Masson’s suggestive line is exemplary. For the bibliophile this is a finely balanced conversation between text and image, executed with care and anchored by a strictly limited edition.
Quantity
Jouffroy, Alain
Masson, André
Le Septième chant. La Mort d’Isidore Ducasse
1974 | Paris | Société internationale d’art du XXe siècle
A rare and exact duet of word and image in which a key modern figure is made to glow anew. This copy combines signatures, numbering and excellent condition with striking graphic force. A benchmark piece for any collection of the French livre d’artiste.
With *Le Septième chant. La Mort d’Isidore Ducasse*, Alain Jouffroy composes an incantatory elegy to the tutelary figure of Lautréamont. Issued in 1974 by the Société internationale d’art du XXe siècle, the book is enriched with four original etchings and aquatints by André Masson. The frontispiece, printed in red, sets a fiery, visionary, corporeal tone. Large in scale, issued as loose leaves in wrappers with chemise and slipcase, it belongs to the grand tradition of the livre d’artiste. The encounter between Jouffroy’s ardent prose and Masson’s suggestive line is exemplary. For the bibliophile this is a finely balanced conversation between text and image, executed with care and anchored by a strictly limited edition.
€750
Condition Report:
In-Depth Study
References & Bibliography
Format
Petit in-Folio
Edition Particulars
One of 100 copies without the separate suite, signed by the author and the illustrator.
Print Run
210
Copy Number
No. 80
Paper
vélin d’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:
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1
Signed:
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Product DETAIL
Jouffroy addresses Isidore Ducasse, known as Lautréamont, as a pivot of modern imagination. In dense fragments he shifts between praise, critique and dream, giving the rhetoric of insubordination and metamorphosis a liturgical cadence. Ducasse’s death becomes not an end but a source from which visions of violence and tenderness rise. Ample typography lets the plates breathe, so that images act as echoes and portents throughout the reading. The result is a hybrid form—a poetic essay nourished by art history and by the nocturnal side of language. The text reads like a rite guiding the reader from Maldoror’s shadows toward a precise new attention.
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
Mari, Paul · Goetz, Henri
L’emploi du temps
L’emploi du temps is a modest yet notably appealing poetry book from the late 1960s. Paul Mari’s text is given particular weight by the presence of Henri Goetz, whose signed original colour engraving moves the volume into the field of the modern artist’s book. Published by Éditions Chambelland in 1969, it appeared in a limited issue on pur fil paper. This copy, number 22 of 50, belongs to the deluxe variant with original print. It is made more distinctive by Paul Mari’s autograph presentation inscription to Susy Solidor, a figure with her own charged place in twentieth-century artistic and social culture. The combination of small limitation, signed print, inscription and avant-garde context makes the book relevant to The Hidden Page, even if Mari is less canonical than his illustrator.
Ill Book
€275
Dorgelès, Roland · Dunoyer de Segonzac
La Boule de gui
This first edition brings together three war episodes omitted from Les Croix de bois: La Boule de gui, Permissionnaires, and Le Prisonnier bénévole, formerly titled L’Ennemi des vieux. Published in 1922, it is also the first illustrated issue of these texts. André Dunoyer de Segonzac accompanies Dorgelès’s front-line prose with 42 reproduced drawings and five original drypoints hors texte, including the frontispiece. His nervous, direct line closely matches the stories’ hard observation and comradeship. This copy, number 401 on tinted Lafuma paper, belongs to the regular yet still limited issue of 519 copies on this stock. Devauchelle’s exceptional artist’s binding translates trenches, crosses, and explosions into a forceful modern design, turning the volume into a distinctive bibliophile object.
