Programmes Ballets Russes

This inaugural issue of La Révolution surréaliste belongs to one of the most charged founding moments of the European avant-garde periodical. It appeared shortly after Breton’s first Manifesto of Surrealism and immediately gave the new movement a voice that was polemical, experimental, and collective. Far from a luxury book, it presents itself as a fragile yet explosive working document in which essays, dream accounts, inquiries, and visual interventions intersect. The contributors gathered here — Breton, Aragon, Éluard, Desnos, Péret, Reverdy, and others — define the early constellation of Surrealism in the act of formation. The presence of images and reproductions associated with Man Ray, Picasso, and Giorgio de Chirico likewise shows how literature and visual art were intertwined from the outset. For the bibliophile, this first issue is far more than a magazine: it is a source document in which programme, experiment, and group identity remain visibly in the making. This copy is in clearly below-average condition, yet for that very reason it feels deeply authentic in its survival. It remains a fragile, historically charged object from the first hours of Surrealism.

This series of twenty original issues documents a decisive phase in the first year of *Lacerba*, a central periodical of Italian Futurism. It runs from no. 5, dated 1 March, through no. 24 of 15 December 1913, forming an almost continuous core of the year. The first four numbers are absent, so the series does not constitute the complete first year. Under the direction of Giovanni Papini and Ardengo Soffici, the journal brought together manifestos, polemics, literary experiment and visual art. Contributions by Marinetti, Apollinaire, Max Jacob and Picasso, among others, reveal the connection between Italian Futurism and a wider European avant-garde network. No. 18 contains Apollinaire’s *L’Antitradition futuriste*, while the issue of 15 October presents early examples of Futurist *parole in libertà*. As an ensemble, the series preserves not only the texts but also the rhythm, typography and polemical energy of the original periodical format. Its substantial scope, original state and historical coherence make it especially appealing to the bibliophile.

This special June issue of *La Danse* documents the first Paris season of Rolf de Maré’s Ballets Suédois. Under De Maré and choreographer Jean Börlin, the company emerged as the principal post-war parallel and rival to Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Its establishment at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées gave this ambition a powerful symbolic continuity. Valentine Hugo designed the cover, lending the programme-periodical a distinct artistic identity. This copy retains the loose programme for the performances of 3, 7 and 12 June. Within it, *Jeux* provides a tangible link with the Ballets Russes repertoire: Debussy’s music and Nijinsky’s original scenario were combined with new choreography by Börlin and a setting by Pierre Bonnard. The issue therefore shows how the Diaghilev model was not merely imitated but reinterpreted by a younger modernist company. Preserving both the periodical and its separate programme, the ensemble is an important document of the transition between two major companies of the Parisian dance avant-garde.

This original December issue of *La Danse* served as the official programme for the thirteenth Russian season at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. The publication combines the ephemeral nature of a theatre programme with the visual ambition of an avant-garde periodical. Its colour cover reproduces Picasso’s watercolour design for the Chinese costume in *Parade* and provides the issue’s immediately recognizable artistic focus. Inside are colour reproductions of costumes for *Shéhérazade* after Léon Bakst, a title illustration by Valentine Hugo and numerous photographs of dancers and productions. The issue records how Serge Diaghilev brought painting, music, choreography and publicity design together within a single modern conception of performance. The illustrations are reproductions rather than separate signed original prints. The red and grey-green typography remains crisp, while the cover colours show remarkably little fading for such a fragile publication. Despite its own signs of use, the surviving glassine has evidently protected the original wrappers.