1896

19th February: Birth of André Breton at Tinchebray in l’Orne (Normandy).

1912-1913

Studying philosophy at the Lycée Chaptal, il commence à s'intéresser aux arts plastiques, visite musées, galeries, he begins to take an interest in fine arts, visits museums, galleries, exhibitions, especially the Bernheim gallery (40, rue de La Boétie, Paris VIIIe).

Attracted by the work of Gustave Moreau, Bonnard, Vuillard, Roussel, Signac, and the tribal arts (with the money he received for his success in his baccalaureate, he buys himself his very first object, an item from Easter Island).

He reads Baudelaire, Valéry, Mallarmé and Huysmans.

1914

15th March: Meets Paul Valéry for the first time. Begins regular visits and correspondence with him until 1922. Publication in La Phalange of three poems by André Breton including a sonnet dedicated to Paul Valéry.

In Lorient (Brittany), stay marked by the thrilling discovery of Rimbaud  (A Season in Hell [Une saison en enfer]).

October: Return to Paris where he enrolls at the medical university

André Breton regularly receives Les Soirées de Paris. The collection of reproductions accompanying each issue (in January, no 20, le Douanier Rousseau; in February, no 21, Derain; in March, no 22, Picabia; in April, no 23, Braque; in May, no 24, Matisse) particularly contributed to his preferences: from then on, some of the reproduced paintings enter his personal world and he will permanently refer to these (Portrait of a man with a newspaper [Le Chevalier X], 1914, by d'André Derain or The two-way Mirror [La Glace sans tain], 1913 - today called The Blue Window [La Fenêtre bleue] - by Matisse, among others).

1915

26th February: The class of 1916 is conscripted as early as 1915. Breton is enlisted in the 17th artillery regiment as a military nurse.

12th April - 29th June: He does his basic training at Pontivy (Brittany).

In early July: Assigned to the health service in Nantes (Pays de la Loire).

December: Starts his epistolary relationship with Apollinaire.

1916

Fin février : Fait la connaissance de Jacques Vaché en convalescence à l'hôpital de Nantes. Rencontre décisive.

10th May: On leave in Paris, first visit to Apollinaire the day after the cubist poet’s trepanation.

26th July: Assigned to the Saint-Dizier's neuropsychiatric center, run by Doctor Raoul Leroy Charcot's former assistant, where he stays until mid-November. ‘The time I spent in this place and the sustained attention I gave to what was happening there have been highly significant in my life and no doubt had a decisive influence on the development of my thought. It is there (...) that I was able to test out the psychoanalytic inquiry method on patients, especially in recording (...) dreams and the uncontrolled association of ideas. Incidentally, one can already observe that these dreams, these associative categories would from the outset establish nearly all that surrealism needed’.(Entretiens, p. 36-37).

December: Sent to the front (the Meuse offensive) as a stretcher bearer.

1917

8th January: Assigned as a military nurse to the 22nd division in Paris.

At the end of January, he is hired as an extern at la Pitié Neurological Center (in Professor Babinski’s service). Regularly meets Apollinaire, Valéry, Royère. Start of a correspondence with Pierre Reverdy.

24th June: Apollinaire introduces him to Philippe Soupault.

1st September: Regretfully leaves the Pitié for the Val de Grâce where he meets Louis Aragon.

Summer: Project (that won’t be completed) for a book on contemporary painters, with Aragon and Soupault. ‘Soupault, Aragon and I in collaboration will undertake a book on painters. I suggested adopting this list: Henri Rousseau, Henri Matisse, Picasso, d'André Derain, Marie Laurencin, Georges Braque, Juan Gris, Georges de Chirico’. (Letter to Théodore Fraenkel, 29th July 1918, quoted in Œuvres Complètes, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, p.1083).

1918

March - April: Regularly meets Apollinaire, at 202, boulevard Saint-Germain, ‘between bookshelves, rows of African fetishes, paintings: Picasso, Georges de Chirico, Larionov… »’. There, he discovers the first two issues of Dada journal (no 1, July 1917 and no 2, December 1917).

12th September:  In a letter to letter to Aragon, he defines the different  elements of what he means by ‘lyricism’. Among those, ‘The invariable: ready-made phrases, commonplaces, wallpaper or fake wood. And lyricism in painting will be the pasted journal in Portrait of a man with a newspaper [Le Chevalier X], the mother-of-pearl Café Bar sign by Braque’. (Aragon Archives, CNRS). His letter ends with a chart, ‘The ones I still love’. The list includes: ‘ Rimbaud, Derain, Lautréamont, Reverdy, Braque, Aragon, Picasso, Vaché, Matisse, Jarry, Marie Laurencin.’

In early September: Acquires a drawing by Modigliani.

1st November: Visits Picasso (cf. two letters to Aragon, 1st November 1918).

1919

8th March: Meets Éluard  for the first time via Jean Paulhan, at l'hôtel des Grands-Hommes.

19th March: First issue of the review Littérature, headed by Aragon, Breton and Soupault.

March - April: Breton copies the entirety of Isidore Ducasse's Poésies at the National Library [Bibliothèque nationale].

May: Writes with Soupault Les Champs magnétiques [Les Champs magnétiques]. The comment written by Breton in 1930 on the front page of the copy intended for René Gaffé explains the circumstances and choices that lead to the systematic application of ‘automatic writing’ and to this ‘coup d’État’ of a book.

August: Publication of Jacques Vaché's War letters [Lettres de guerre] with a preface by André Breton published by Au Sans Pareil.

Novembre: Publication of the review 391 by Francis Picabia showing Marcel Duchamp's work.

11th December: Breton’s first letter to Picabia: he asks him to collaborate on Littérature.

1920

January: Writes an essay on Giorgio de Chirico (used for De Chirico exhibition’s preface at Paul Guillaume, from 21st March to 1st of April 1922).

4th January: First visit to Picabia.

 Breton lives at l'hôtel des Grands-Hommes. In his room hangs drawings (two by Derain, three by Marie Laurencin, one by Modigliani) that will be burned by Georgina Dubreuil, his girlfriend at the time, in a fit of spite…

March: Permanently abandons his medical studies.

Valéry helps him to obtain an administrative job at the Nouvelle Revue Française (N.R.F), in the readers and subscription department. He proofreads The Guermantes’ Way [Du Côté de Guermantes] prints by Marcel Proust (April to July).

April: Start of a correspondence with Max Ernst.

30th May: Publication of Les Champs magnétiques [Les Champs magnétiques] by Au Sans Pareil with two drawings by Picabia, portraits of Breton and Soupault.

End of June: Encounter with Simone Kahn at the Luxembourg.

7th November: Visit to Derain’s studio described in ‘A painter’s ideas’ [« Idées d'un peintre »]: Derain isnt’ subjectiviste. He denies the fact that a set of lines might appear beautiful’. Breton purchases from Derain a small painting that will be his engagement gift to Simone.

1921

March: Article on Derain in Littérature (‘A painter’s ideas’ [« Idées d'un peintre »] used in The Lost Steps [Les Pas Perdus], 1924).

2nd May: Exhibition of Max Ernst’s collages at Sans Pareil. Preface by André Breton.

13th May: A ‘trial’ is filed against Barrès for ‘crimes against the mind’s safety’.

June - July: The couturier Jacques Doucet hires Breton as his artistic advisor and librarian.

14th June: Première vente Kahnweiler. Breton purchases a small Head [Tête] by Picasso.

July: Makes Marcel Duchamp's acquaintance as he is in Paris

June 1921 to January 1922: Also meets Man Ray.

15th September: André Breton and Simone’s wedding at the XVIIth arrondissement town hall. Paul Valéry is Breton’s best man.

10th October: André Breton meets Freud in Vienna.

17th - 18th November: Seconde vente Kahnweiler. Purchases some works by Derain, Braque and Picasso.

3rd December: Prompts Jacques Doucet to acquire The Young Ladies of Avignon [Les Demoiselles d'Avignon], and likewise recommends to him the purchase of Saturday [Le Samedi], 1914 or Portrait of a man with a newspaper [Le Chevalier X], 1914 by Derain.

1922

1st January: André Breton and his wife Simone Kahn move to rue Fontaine.

January - February: Widely broadcast call (2nd January) and project for an ‘International congress for the determination of guidelines and the defense of modern spirit’ or Paris Congress de Paris, planned for March. The project would be abandoned.

1st March: Premier numéro de la nouvelle série de Littérature edited by Breton.

4th July: Troisième vente Kahnweiler. André Breton purchases three works by Braque and one by Léger.

25th September: Start of the hypnotic sleep experiments. First sessions with Péret, Desnos and Crevel narrated in ‘The Mediums’ Entrance’ [« Entrée des Médiums »].

30th October: Leaves for Barcelona where an exhibition of Picabia's work will take place, at the galerie Dalmau gallery (18 novembre - 8 décembre), prefaced by Breton.

17th November: Breton gives a lecture at the Ateneo, ‘Characteristics of modern evolution and what contributes to it’. In many ways, this text foreshadows Surrealism and painting [Le Surréalisme et la peinture] (priority given to Picasso, then Picabia, De Chirico, Duchamp, Max Ernst).

1923

February: Breton gets Doucet to purchase a work by Max Ernst.

6th July: Cœur à barbe evening planned by Tzara at théâtre Michel. Breton, with Desnos and Péret, is thrown out after defending Picasso who had been attacked by Pierre de Massot.

2nd September: André Breton congratulates Doucet for his purchase of a glass by Marcel Duchamp that marks ‘the extreme point of the modern trajectory in painting’ (quoted by François Chapon, Misères et splendeurs de Jacques Doucet, Paris, Lattès, 1984, p. 291).

18th September: Writes to Picasso in order to ask him if his book Earthlight [Clair de terre] ‘could begin with a portrait of myself by you’ (Archives Musée Picasso).

15th November: Publication of Earthlight [Clair de terre], a collection of automatic poems written between 1920 and 1923, preceded by five dream transcriptions (Littérature collection).

1924

5th February: Publication of The Lost Steps [Les Pas Perdus], by NRF.

April: A new ‘game’ is inaugurated at rue Fontaine: poems made with cut up sentences from newspapers, such as some of the poems from Soluble Fish [Poisson soluble].

Early May: Breton goes on a ‘haphazard’ walking tour with Aragon, Morise and Vitrac, from Blois to Romorantin (Loir-et-Cher), which is intended as an experiment of wandering in a real space.

On the 18th, Breton and the whole surrealist group sign a ‘Tribute to Pablo Picasso’.

End of September: First encounter with André Masson. They both immediately feel ‘on the same ground’ while talking about Lautréamont, Raymond Roussel, Reverdy, but ‘as soon as I add to these prestigious names those of Nietzsche and Dostoïevski, his reaction was swift : “what I hate the most”’. (André Masson, ‘45 rue Blomet’, Atoll, no 2, Sept. - Nov. 1968, p. 15-21).

Miró’s tumultuous entry, in 1924, marks an important step in the development of surrealist art.
‘Miró, who leaves behind a corpus that was of less advanced spirit but which demonstrates first-rate plastic qualities, leaps over the last barriers that could still stand in the way of a total spontaneity of expression.’ (Surrealism’s origins and artistic prospects [Genèse et perspective artistiques du surréalisme], 1941)

11th October: Opening of the Office for surrealist research.

15th October: Publication of Manifesto of surrealism, followed by Soluble Fish [Poisson soluble], with Simon Kra's publishing house, Sagittaire.

18th October: Upon Anatole France 's death, Breton, Aragon, Delteil, Soupault and Éluard write a violent pamphlet (‘A corpse’ [« Un cadavre »]) where the deaths of Loti, Barrès and France, ‘the idiot, the traitor and the policeman’ respectively, are hailed as welcomed.

1st December: Publication of no 1 of The Surrealist Revolution [La Révolution Surréaliste], edited by Pierre Naville and Benjamin Péret for the next two issues (no 2 and no 3 inclus, 15th April 1925).

1925

February: Breton looks forward visiting, rue Blomet to see some paintings by Miró, who he doesn’t know yet.

Winter 1924 - 1925: Breton writes ‘Introduction to Speech on the paucity of reality’ [« Introduction au Discours sur le peu de réalité »] (Commerce no 3, Winter 1924) which is actually published in 1925.

2nd July: Violent events during surrealists' protest at the banquet held at the Closerie des Lilas by the surrealist group in honour of Saint-Pol Roux. The press rages against the surrealists’ activities.

15th July: Publication of The Surrealist Revolution [La Révolution surréaliste] no 4. From now on, Breton is the only one in charge of the journal and explains it in the text ‘Why I am taking over The Surrealist Revolution [La Révolution surréaliste]’. Start of publication of Breton’s essay on 'Surrealism and Painting’ in this issue, which opens on this sensational premise: ‘The eye exists in a savage state’. Breton puts forward the concept of the ‘interior model’ for the first time. It was also the first reproduction of the painting The Young Ladies of Avignon [Les Demoiselles d'Avignon].

End of July - Early August: Initial contacts with Paul Nougé and Camille Goemans, with the prospect of an ideological merging of La Révolution surréaliste, Clarté and Philosophies with Correspondance’s Belgian group. Their common statement in a tract published in early August ‘The Revolution first and always !’ [« La Révolution d'abord et toujours ! »] begins an alignment with the Communist Party (CP).

November: Despite the break with Philosophies group, collaboration between Clarté and La Révolution surréaliste continues with the (unsuccessful) project of a common journal, Civil war [La Guerre civile].

 On the 13th, at midnight, the inauguration of the first exhibition of surrealist paintings, Surrealist painting [La Peinture surréaliste] at Pierre Gallery. Are shown works by De Chirico, Arp, Ernst, Klee, Man Ray,Masson, Miró, Picasso, and Pierre Roy.

December: Invention at Rue du Château of the game of ‘exquisite corpse’ [« cadavre exquis »]. Encounter with Yves Tanguy.  A deep friendship would bind him permanently to Breton whose influence is decisive, as Yves Tanguy immediately practices automatic drawings.

End of December: Hans Arp’s arrival in Paris. He meets up again with Max Ernst and befriends Joan Miró.

1926

26th March: The Surrealist Gallery [Galerie surréaliste] opens with the exhibition Tableaux de Man Ray et objets des Îles (Océanie). The novel association in a same space of primitive artworks and paintings in the spirit of Dada causes a stir.

30th September: Publication of Self-defence [Légitime défense] by Éditions surréalistes. Analysing the links established over the past year between the CP and the surrealist group, Breton advocates the absence of any external, ‘even marxist’ control, while stating ‘enthusiastic support in principle for the Communist programme’.

4th October: Meets Nadja on rue Lafayette, whom he sees continuously until 17th October, and less frequently until February 1927: a dazzling encounter in many respects of the one he considers as a « free genius » and which will drastically change his poetic frameworks and gaze.

November: The successive meetings concerning the CP membership problem creates tensions in the group : on the 23rd and 27th, the former ‘committee’ (made up of Clarté members and the surrealists) meet at Le Prophète café: Artaud withdraws while Soupault is expelled.

1927

14th January: Breton joins the Communist Party (CP), and is assigned to a cell of gas employees.

April: Publishes a tract with Aragon and Éluard un tract, Lautréamont against all odds [Lautréamont envers et contre tout], against the publication of the works by Soupault.

May: In broad daylight [Au grand jour], written by Breton, Aragon, Éluard, Péret et Unik, and giving their reasons for joining the CP.

May - June: With Éluard discovers dolls from Native American Pueblos and New Mexico, that he adds to Yves Tanguy’s personal exhibition, Yves Tanguy and Objects from America [Yves Tanguy et objets d'Amérique], organised by Breton at the Surréalist Gallery Galerie surréaliste (27th May- 15th June).

October: Meets Magritte who had settled in Perreux-sur-Marne since August.

1928

11th February: Publication of Surrealism and painting [Surréalisme et la peinture] by Gallimard, with 77 photo-engravings.

15th March: In no 11 of La Révolution surréaliste Breton celebrates hysteria’s fiftieth anniversary, the ‘supreme mean of expression’, with Aragon.

25th May: Publication of Nadja, by Gallimard, with 44 photographic illustrations, each captioned with an extract from the text.

9th June: Incidents with Artaud during a performance of The Dream Play by Strindberg at the Alfred Jarry theater.

1929

January: Breton acquires two watercolours by Kandinsky during the artist’s first exhibition in Paris at the Zak gallery, place Saint-Germain des Prés.

11th March: A tumultuous meeting at the Bar du Château between the groups of La Révolution surréaliste, Le Grand Jeu and Philosophies, ‘summoned’ on the pretext of examining Trotsky’s fate.

April: Makes Dalí’s acquaintance, who was introduced to the surrealist group by Miró as soon as he arrived in Paris in March.

June: Publication of the special issue of Variétés, ‘Surrealism in 1929’ [« Le Surréalisme en 1929 »]. In opens with the transcript from the 11th March meeting : ‘To follow: a modest contribution to the records of some intellectuals with a revolutionary inclination’, signed by Aragon and Breton. The break with Desnos is made clear.

20th November - 5th December: Salvador Dalí's first Parisian exhibition at the Gœmans Gallery, with a preface by Breton.

15th December: Publication of La Révolution surréaliste’s last issue (no 12), along with the Second Manifesto of surrealism [Manifeste du surréalisme], ‘Note on poetry’ [« Notes sur la poésie »] (in association with Éluard) and ‘Survey on love’ [« Enquête sur l'Amour »].

1930

15th January: In response to the Second Manifesto, publication of the tract A Corpse against Breton, signed by Ribemont-Dessaignes, Prévert, Queneau, Vitrac, Leiris, Limbour, Boiffard, Desnos, Morise, Jacques Baron, Carpentier and Bataille.

14th February: Breton answers to A Corpse with the tract Before, After tract.

20th March: Breton leaves Paris for Avignon where Char and Éluard join him. They write Ralentir Travaux together which will be published on 20th April by Éditions surréalistes.

25th June: Publication by Kra publishing house of the Second Manifesto of surrealism [Manifeste du surréalisme]. It is preceded by a collective statement ‘For release’, expressing support to Breton.

July: Publication of the first issue of Surrealism in the service of revolution [Surréalisme au service de la révolution], whose title was suggested by Aragon, with the journal edited by Breton.

November: Takes part in L' Âge d'or programme-review’s collective text by Buñuel and Dalí, screened at Studio 28.

24th November: Publication of L'Immaculée Conception by Éditions Surréalistes.

1st December: The day after Kharkov’s Congress (Second revolutionary writers international congress, from 6th to 11th November), Aragon and Sadoul sign an ‘autocritique’ letter denouncing the surrealists ‘Freudism’ and ‘Trotskyism’. Their ambiguous behaviour towardsc Dalí, and then Breton and his entourage, is a prelude to their break with the group.

3rd December: The Patriots League and the Anti-Jewish League members attack Studio 28, vandalising the surrealist paintings.

Lacan gets in touch with Breton and the surrealists.

December: Victor Brauner, arriving from Bucharest, and Jacques Hérold are presented to Breton by Tanguy.

1931

10th June: Publication of Free Union [L'Union libre], in which Breton evokes the idea a Woman in the absolute of shared passion.

2nd - 3rd July: Sale at the l'hôtel Drouot of part of Breton’s collection of tribal art along with that of Paul Éluard’s, Sculptures of Africa, America and Oceania [Sculptures d'Afrique, d'Amérique et d'Océanie], organised by Charles Ratton.

20th September: Opening of the Anticolonial exhibition at the former Soviet pavilion, organised in response to the Colonial exhibition [l'Exposition coloniale] which is denounced in May by Breton and the surrealists in the tract: Do not visit the Colonial exhibition [Ne visitez pas l'Exposition coloniale].

December: Publication of nos. 3 and 4 of Surréalisme A.S.D.L.R. Pursuit of anti-colonialist and especially anti-religious activity, already stated in May’s tract Fire! [Au feu !].

1932

January: The arrival in Paris of Meret Oppenheim, who is introduced to the surrealists by Giacometti and Arp.

March: In Misery of the poetry [Misère de la poésie], in spite of his personal opposition to propaganda’s poetry, Breton stands up for Aragon, prosecuted for his poem Red Front [Front rouge]. On 10th March, Aragon disowns his friend in L’Humanité, and the rupture between them is complete.

June: In no 3 of Surrealism today and here [Surréalisme aujourd'hui et ici], published in Belgrade, Breton, Éluard, Crevel and Dalí answer to the ‘survey on desire’ launched by Marco Ristič. All agree on the preeminence of desire.

Late June: Publishes Le Revolver à cheveux blancs dedicated to Paul Éluard.

26th November: Publication of Communicating Vessels [Vases communicants] (by Cahiers libres) a copy of which Breton sends to Freud who answers with three letters (13th, 14th and 15th December). The book, entirely written in reponse to Hegel, is an ambitious attempt to establish the close existing links between dream and the waking state and define the futur fonction of the surrealist poet.

1933

January: Breton is named as a member of the literature service section of the Revolutionary writers and artists association [A.E.A.R.].

March: Giacometti actively participates in the surrealist researches, and realises a portraiture of Breton.

Early June: Joint publication of nos. 1 and 2 of Minotaure. Breton inaugurates the review with his key text ‘Picasso in his element’ [« Picasso dans son élément »].

7th - 18th June: Surrealist exhibition [Exposition surréaliste], at the Pierre Colle gallery: a new position is given to surrealist ‘objects’ alongside paintings, drawings, collages.

3rd July: Accused of having publication in the May issue of Le Surréalisme A.S.D.L.R. a letter from Alquié attacking the ‘civic and moral conceptions that governed to Russian film Road to Life’, Breton is expelled from the A.E.A.R..

October: Breton personaly intervenes to introduce Kandinsky (chased by the Gestapo in July after the earlier closure of the Bauhaus) in the important section granted to the surrealists (Arp, Victor Brauner,Dalí, Ernst, ,Miró, Oppenheim, Man Ray, Tanguy) at the Surindependant exhibition [Salon des Surindépendants].

1934

February: In L'Appel à la lutte (on the 10th) published in protest against the 6th February fascist putsch, Breton mobilises and joins the Antifascists intellectuals’ Vigilance Committee.

 From Brussels, Mesens gets in touch with Breton in order to invite him to dedicate the first issue (published in June) of the new series of Documents 34 to surrealism. Breton sends him a fundamental text: ‘Equation of the found object’ [« Équation de l'objet trouvé »].

April: For the next issue of n° 5 de Minotaure (to appear in June), works on his article ‘Beauty will be convulsive’ [« La beauté sera convulsive »]. Already stated at the end of Nadja, this peremptory proposal, that sums up Breton’s aesthetic programme, is now defined in terms of contradictions: ‘erotic-veiled, explosive-fixed, magical-circumstantial.’ (This text will be the opening text of L' Amour fou).

29th May: Meets Jacqueline Lamba in place Blanche.

1st June: In his conference ‘What is surrealism?’ in Brussels, Breton insists on the dangers of the fascist peril, reaffirms the existence of a proletarian art and the duty of intellectuals and artists to fight for the liberation of mankind.

July: In the context of new and updated edition of Surrealim and Painting [Surréalisme et la peinture], Breton offers to add artworks by Magritte who, on his request, sends him the description of eight paintings and drawings, with pictures.

Publication of Break of day [Point du jour] (Gallimard).

14th August: At his wedding with Jacqueline, the witnesses are Giacometti and Éluard.

September: First contact with Oscar Dominguez.

28th November: For the first Paris exhibition by Victor Brauner (at the galerie Pierre gallery), for which Breton writes the catalogue preface, ‘White Rose Bouquet’ [‘Botte rose blanche’].

November - December: In honour of the Ondine (Jacqueline), Breton writes the poems of The Air of the water [L'Air de l'eau], which are published by the Cahiers libres.

From Berlin, Hans Bellmer sends him eighteen pictures of The Doll [La Poupée], whose reproduction in Minotaure n° 6 attests to its ‘adoption’ by the surrealists.

In the same issue, Breton greets the publication of The Green Box [La Boîte verte] by Duchamp: The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even [La Mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même], by writing the first major text dedicated to The Large Glass [Grand verre]: ‘Lighthouse of the bride’ [« Phare de la mariée »].

1935

27th March: Leaves for Prague, ‘the magic capital of all Europe’. Invited by the Czechoslovak surrealist group Breton gives a conference: ‘Surrealist situation of the object, situation of the surrealist object’ [« Situation surréaliste de l'objet, situation de l'objet surréaliste »], in which he examines the artwork’s status from the point of view of Hegelian dialectics, and on this occasion advances the notion of the ‘poem-object’.

9th April: Publication of International bulletin of surrealism [Bulletin international du surréalisme] in a bilingual version.

27th April: Leaves for Tenerife, for the International exhibition of Surrealism at the Alteneo of Santa Cruz. Publication of the International bulletin of Surrealism no 2.

18th June: René Crevel's suicide.

20th - 25th June: During the Writers congress for the defence of culture, organised on Moscow’s instructions in order to denounce the rise of fascism, Breton is forbidden to speak (due to the slap he delivered to Ilya Ehrenbourg, for slandering surrealism). Breton openly takes a stand against the Franco-Sovietic pact and calls for the worldwide proletarian revolution.

In ‘The Night of the Sunflower’ [« La Nuit du Tournesol »], which is published with illustrations by Brassaï in Minotaure no 7,  Breton refers back to his first meeting with Jacqueline Lamba, expanding on the ‘objective chance’ of this predestined encounter foretold in his 1923 poem ‘Sunflower’.

2nd July: Breton brings together the whole surrealist group at Maurice Heine's and writes the tract which openly stands against Stalinism: The time that surrealists were right [Du temps que les surréalistes avaient raison]. La rupture avec le P.C. est définitive.

August: Publication of the International bulletin of Surrealism no. 3 in Brussels.

7th October: With the foundation of Contre-attaque a new form of common action and a rapprochement with Bataille are attempted.

November : Contre-attaque's programme is published in Political position of surrealism [Position politique du surréalisme] (by Sagittaire).

20th December: Birth of André and Jacqueline Breton’s daughter Aube.

1936

5th January: Following the attack against Leon Blum lead by members of Action française, Breton participates in the demonstration of 17th February along with the Contre-attaque, group, which calls for a ‘revolutionnary offensive’.

24th March: In the face of provocations by those around Bataille, that have a ‘sur-fascist tendency’, and who stand accused of being pro-Hitler, Breton publicly quits Contre-attaque.

10th April: Pursuing his thinking on the object, Breton expresses his continuing interest in Marcel Duchamp's ‘ready-mades’.

20th April: Finishes his text ‘Crisis of the object » [« Crise de l'objet »], to be published in nos. 1-2 of Cahiers d'art dedicated to the object (early May): a fundamental text which exemplifies the culmination of the ‘total revolution of the object’ - by a ‘change of role’ - sought since 1924 by Breton.

May: At the same time curates the Surrealist exhibition of objects [l'Exposition surréaliste d'objets] at the Charles Ratton gallery galerie Charles Ratton. At his suggestion it brings together, for the first time, scientific and natural objects, found objects, tribal objects and so-called ‘surrealist’ objects which he asks some artists to create.

Discovers the ‘already fully surrealist’ artwork of Paalen during his exhibition at the galerie Pierre. Paalen immediately joins the group’s meetings and exhibitions..

June: Annouces in Minotaure n° 8 the new ‘automatic’ practice (close to Victor Hugo's ink drawings) invented by Oscar Dominguez,  in his text ‘On decalcomania without a preconceived object (decalcomania of desire)’ [« D'une décalcomanie sans objet préconçu (décalcomanie du désir) »].

11th June - 4th July: 2nd International exhibition of Surrealism [IIe Exposition internationale du Surréalisme] in London, prefaced by Breton and organised at Herbert Read's initiative, with Roland Penrose and David Gascoyne’s collaboration.

September: International bulletin of Surrealism no 4 (London).

Denouncing the Moscow Trials, alongside the Trotskyists, he signs the tract Call to men [Appel aux hommes]. On 3rd September, he pronounces a ‘declaration’ during the meeting ‘The Truth about Moscow trial’ [« La Vérité sur le procès de Moscou »], referring to Staline as the ‘proletarian revolution’s main enemy’. Breton is therefore one of the few intellectuals to clearly declare themselves against Moscow and to publicly support Trotsky.

1937

16th January: Breton’s speech Comrades, more light [Camarades, plus de lumière], during the meeting held by the Trotskyist international Labour Party, concerning the second Moscow trial.

2nd February: Publication of Mad Love [L'Amour fou], by Gallimard publishing house, with eighteen photographic illustrations (by Brassaï, Man Ray, Dora Maar and Cartier-Bresson).

February: Breton sees himself entrusted with the management of a gallery which opens in May under the name of Gradiva, in honor of ‘the one who goes forward’, heroine of Jensen's book commented upon by Freud. He asks Marcel Duchamp to make the door.

May: First exhibition at Gradiva gallery, which brings together objects, Oceanian sculptures, books (among them Mad Love [L'Amour fou]) and works by Arp, Hans Bellmer, De Chirico,Dalí, Dominguez, Duchamp,Ernst, Giacometti, Hayter, Klee, Dora Maar, Marcoussis,Miró, Oelze, Paalen, Picabia, Picasso, Man Ray, Tanguy…

9th - 14th June: International Surrealist exhibition [Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme] in Tokyo.

9th October: Breton’s conference on black humour, at the Comédie des Champs-Élysées, where a prime position is given to Jarry's Ubu.

Makes the acquaintance of the young Chilean painter Roberto Matta, on the advice of Dalí.

December: With no 10 Minotaure's editorship, until then undertaken by Tériade, passes to Breton, Duchamp, Éluard, Heine and Mabille.

1938

17th January-February: With Éluard organises the International exhibition of Surrealism [Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme] at the the Beaux-Arts gallery, with the scenographic collaboration of Marcel Duchamp and the help of Georges Hugnet. As a catalogue, Breton and Éluard publish the Concised dictionnary of surrealism [Dictionnaire abrégé du surréalisme], by José Corti.

Late February: Thanks to the intervention of Saint-John Perse and Henri Laugier, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs offers him a conference mission in Mexico.

March: The texts brought together by Breton for the seventh Cahier G.L.M. Dream trajectory [Trajectoire du rêve] are published with a ‘Note on Freud’ in which he strongly denounces the charges faced by the father of psychoanalysis.

18th April: Arriving at Veracruz, Breton and Jacqueline are welcomed by the painter Diego Rivera, who will give them accomodation in his house in San Angel.

May: First encounter with Trotsky.

22nd July: Responds to Trotsky's suggestion to develop a manifesto inviting the creation of an International federation for revolutionary art [Fédération internationale de l'art révolutionnaire indépendant (F.I.A.R.I.)]. The final draft texte, For an independant revolutionnary art [Pour un art révolutionnaire indépendant] (25th July), is signed by Breton and Diego Rivera for tactical reasons. It imposes itself as a vibrant plea for the necessity of freedom for artistic creation, which, in their eyes, is only the manifestation of the spirit of emancipated desire.

1st August: André Breton and Jacqueline embark from Veracruz.

18th August - Late September: Back to France. The split with Éluard is definitive, as Breton wants to force him to quit Commune.

1939

January: Publication of the first issue of Clé, F.I.A.R.I.’s monthly journal.

February: Publication of Clé no. 2.

10th - 15th March: Organises the exhibition Mexique at Renou et Colle.

May: Publication of no. 12-13 of Minotaure: in particular, Breton publishes ‘The most recent tendencies of surrealist painting’ [« Des Tendances les plus récentes de la peinture surréaliste »].

September: Mobilised on the 2nd, Breton joins his military unit at Nogent (Île-de-France). Marie Cuttoli welcomes Aube and Jacqueline at Antibes.

With Paalen (who is in Mexico since the beginning of the year) and Cesar Moro, Breton organises from a distance the next International Surrealist exhibition [Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme], which will be held in Mexico in February 1940.

1940

January to July: Assigned to Poitiers elementary flying school.

April: The publication of the Anthology of black humour [Anthologie de l'humour noir], first abandoned by Gallimard, then Denoël, is planned by le Sagittaire, but is blocked by the censors.

1st August: Demobilised, Breton goes to visit Pierre Mabille  at Salon-de-Provence.

Late August: He finishes the poem ‘Full Margin’ [« Pleine Marge »] and sends it to Jean Ballard for Les Cahiers du Sud. He learns about the murder of Trotsky in Mexico.

Late October: Breton, Jacqueline and Aube settle in villa Air Bel, the headquarters of the Emergency Rescue Committee set up to assist intellectuals, lead by Varian Fry and Daniel Bénédite.

3rd December: Breton arrested the day before Pétain's visit in Marseille. He is indeed on file as ‘dangerous anarchist long sought by the French police’. He will be released, after four days… He writes Fata Morgana, a poem dedicated to Jacqueline Breton.

Late December: To pass time, Breton, Jacqueline, Masson,Brauner, Lam, Dominguez, Hérold, draw the cards of the ‘Game of Marseille’ [« jeu de Marseille »].

1941

January: Breton is looking to organise an exhibition with Jean Ballard an gathering the artists who sought refuge in Marseille: Masson, Lam,Brauner, Hérold, Wols…

February: The Censor refuses to allow the publication of the Anthology of Black Humor [Anthologie de l'humour noir] just as it withheld the publication of Fata Morgana.

24th March: With Jacqueline and Aube boards the Capitaine Lemerle to Martinique. On board are Victor Serge, Wifredo Lam, and Claude Lévi-Strauss.

Late April - May: Arrival at Fort-de-France. Reported as a ‘dangerous agitator’, Breton is sent to the Lazaret camp. Afterwards, the discovery of the island in the company of Aimé Césaire. With André Masson, who arrived some days after he did, Breton writes The Creole Dialogue [Le Dialogue créole], published in January 1942 by Lettres françaises in Buenos-Aires and used in Martinique: snake charmer [Martinique, charmeuse de serpents].

Late May: Stopover at Ciudad Trujillo (Saint-Domingue) where Breton meets the painter E. F. Granell.

Early July: Arrival in New-York where Tanguy, Kay Sage and Hayter welcome them.

1942

March: Pierre Lazareff, director of the radio broadcast The Voice of America talks to the French [La Voix de l'Amérique parle aux français] (run by the Office of War Information), hires Breton as speaker.

April: André Breton’s article on Ernst in View, ‘The Legendary life of Max Ernst, preceded by a short discussion on the need for a myth’ [« Vie légendaire de Max Ernst, précédé d'une brève discussion sur le besoin d'un mythe »].

June: First issue of the VVV review founded by David Hare, with Breton and Ernst (and later Duchamp) as advisors.

14th October: Opening of the exhibition First Papers of Surrealism. The spectacular display is designed by Duchamp: nets of string hiding paintings and room entrances. Exhibited artists include Kay Sage, Kurt Seligmann, Leonora Carrington, Esteban Francès among others.

20th October: Opening of Peggy Guggenheim's gallery, Art of this Century.

10th December: At Dr Henri Peyre's invitation, Breton gives a lecture at Yale University: ‘Situation of surrealism between the two wars’ [« Situation du surréalisme ente les deux guerres»].

1943

January: With Ernst, Duthuit, Lévi-Strauss, patronises Julius Carlebach's shop.

Summer: Stays with Jacqueline and David Hare in Long Island, along with Charles Duits. There, he writes a poem ‘The Estates general’ [« Les États généraux »].

9th or 10th December: Breton meets Elisa Claro.

1944

January: Breton writes the foreword of Donati's exhibition at the galerie Passedoit in New York. At that time he also discovers Gorky's painting.

February: Publication of the text ‘The Estates general’ [« Les États généraux »], in VVV, no. 4.

December: Makes Gorky's acquaintance at Margaret La Farge Osborn’s.

Publication of Arcane 17 by Brentano's in New-York with drawings by Matta: four tarot cards. A window display (with a specially-made poster by Matta) is created for this occasion.

1945

February: Preface for the exhibition by Gorky showcased at Julien Levy in March (he considers Gorky in relation to Charles Fourier's work).

April: View special issue dedicated to Marcel Duchamp. Publication by Brentano's of Surrealism and Painting [Surréalisme et la peinture], 1928 text version, enhanced with ‘Surrealism’s genesis and artistic perspective’ [« Genèse et perspective artistique du surréalisme »], and numerous forewords.

June - July: After a quick visit to Chicago, Breton stays in Reno, in Nevada, where he gets a divorce and then marries Elisa on 31st July.

August: Continues his trip through the Grand Canyon of Colorado, Nevada, New-Mexico and Arizona. On 22nd August Breton and Elisa reach the Hopi and Zuni Native American reserves mentioned in The Ode to Charles Fourier [L'Ode à Charles Fourier].

4th December: Arriving in Haïti, Breton and Wifredo Lam meet up with other young artists and poets. Interviewed by René Bélance for Haïti Journal, he defends the cause of black people, and reaffirms the emancipating role of poetry.

1946

1st January: In tribute to André Breton, publication of a special issue of La Ruche containing the 14th December address and an appeal to the youth for the return of democracy in Haïti. There is a popular uprising and the impeachment of the president.

24th January - 3rd February: Breton presents the Lam exhibition at the Art Centre. He also meets the painter Hector Hyppolite and the poet Clément Magloire-Saint-Aude.

May: On the 26th, André Breton returns to Paris. Brauner sends him a message: ‘Your friend who has been waiting for this moment of utmost importance for 5 years.’

7th June: Takes part in the evening’s tribute to Artaud - who has just been released from Rodez's psychiatric asylum -organised at the Sarah-Bernhardt Theater by Paulhan and Adamov.

1947

January: Breton sends an invitation letter to the artists for the International Surrealist Exhibition presented by himself and Marcel Duchamp: the exhibition must reassert the group’s ‘cohesiveness’, and mark a ‘breakthrough’ towards a ‘new myth’.

February: Publication by the Fontaine review’s publishing house of Ode to Charles Fourier [Ode à Charles Fourier], begun in the U.S.A.

April: On the 11th, Breton’s violent action during a lecture by Tristan Tzara at the Sorbonne: ‘Surrealism and the post-war period’ [« Le surréalisme et l'après-guerre »].

First Dubuffet-Breton contacts: they have long shared the same passion for non-standard arts.

Responding to Roger Vailland’s : ‘Surrealism against the revolution’ [« Le surréalisme contre la révolution »], the Surréalistes Révolutionnaires group and especially Sartre's combined attacks, the group writes the tract Inaugural rupture [Rupture inaugurale] in order to define its preliminary attitude towards any partisan policy.

June: Breton writes a preface for l'exposition Toyen, who had sought shelter in Paris with Heisler, after they fled the new communist régime in Prague.

July: On the 7th, the exhibition Surrealism in 1947 [Le surréalisme en 1947] opens at the Maeght gallery. The exhibition displays artists from all backgrounds, many being newcomers (Riopelle, Maria Martins, Scottie Wilson, Baya, Hyppolite…), some before date ‘settings’ : the ‘Rain and maze room' designed by Marcel Duchamp, the ‘Superstitions room' designed by Kiesler and above all, twelve altars ‘dedicated to one being, a category of being or an objet likely to be endowed with mythical life', each built by a different artist.

November: Opening of the Home for outsider art [Foyer de l'art brut] in the basement of the Drouin gallery.

A part of the Surrealism international exhibition is displayed in Prague,Breton writes a new foreword : ‘Second Arc' [« Seconde Arche »] in which, once again, he is adamant about the need to fight both the so-called ‘degenerated' art and the so-called ‘decadent bourgeois' art, and also ‘that despicable word commitment' with ‘the survival of the sign rather than the signified thing a survivance du signe à la chose signifiée inevitably leading to intolerance'.

1948

January: Publication of NÉON's first issue, To be nothing, To be everything, Opening the being [N’être rien, être tout, Ouvrir l’être]. The front page includes his text ‘Rising sign' [« Signe ascendant »]: Breton immediately declares ‘The only intellectual pleasure I’ve ever experienced is on an analogical level'. To the word ‘therefore', Breton prefers ‘like'; to logic, the absence of logic (Free Rein [La Clé des champs]).

June: Publication by the surrealist group of the tract Back to the doghouse, you god-awful yelpers! [À la niche les glapisseurs de dieu !] tract against various attempts to Christianise surrealism.

Writes a foreword to the Oceania [Océanie] exhibition organised by the Andrée Olive gallery. If he doesn’t want to get bogged down in the debate about the superiority of African or Oceanic art, he still gives preference to the latter : Oceania is the greatest immemorial effort ‘Océanie le plus grand effort immémorial to reflect the interpenetration of the physical and the mental…'. In contrast, African art remains too attached to external forms.

October: Rue du Dragon, opening of the Solution surréaliste gallery, also known as La Dragonne.

After tracing the history of the discovery of outsider art (Marcel Reja, Prinzhorn, Lo Duca, Lacan, Dubuffet…) Breton blames critics for only seeing established artists : ‘it is not today's art critics who will seek their own good - and ours - in these trophies of the true ‘spiritual hunt’ through the great ‘wanderings’ of the human mind.

November: The group continues its activities within the world citizen movement embodied by the young American Garry Davis,  who had dared to interrupt a UN meeting on 19th November and had been arrested. The very next day, along with other intellectuals including Camus, Breton took up his cause by signing an article in Combat entitled ‘Un pour tous hormis quelques-uns' (« One for all except for a few »).

12th December: Participates in a meeting of the Rassemblement démocratique révolutionnaire at the Pleyel Hall with Sartre and Camus. Julien Gracq publishes André Breton with éditions Corti, in praise for the man and his work.

1949

February: The group publishes the tract The surrealists to Garry Davis [Les surréalistes à Garry Davis] in which they denounce the limits of nationalism, which ‘pits mankind against itself'...

April: Publishes a text on naive artist Demonchy who exhibits in the gallery de Berri.

May: The day after the publication of a supposedly unpublished work by Rimbaud, The Spiritual Hunt [La Chasse spirituelle], Breton is the first one to denounce the forgery point by point in a letter to Combat dated 19th May. The letter, exhibited in La Hune, library, leads to fierce controversy, especially with Maurice Nadeau and Pascal Pia.

In support of his theses, Breton published in July with éditions Thésée Red-handed, Rimbaud facing the conjuration of imposture and fudging [Flagrant délit, Rimbaud devant la conjuration de l'imposture et du truquage].

Summer: In Pont-Aven buys his first watercolour by Filiger.For some time he runs for the Révélation collection, published by Gallimard.

October: Defends the cause of imprisoned conscientious objectors, but shows some concerns about Garry Davis, whose position had become ‘confusing'.

His daughter Aube comes to live with him in Paris.

1950

18th January: Refuses the City of Paris prize.

20th January: Answers to a survey by Libertaire concerning Céline's trial: ‘My admiration goes only to men whose gifts (artists’ among others) are in keeping with their character’.

13h June: Publishes an open letter to Éluard in Combat, pleading the cause of the Czech minister Kalandra, who had welcomed them in Prague in 1935. Éluardreplies in Action: ‘I have too much to do with innocent people who claim to be innocent to deal with guilty people who claim to be guilty'.

24th June: Discovers the village of Saint-Cirq-Lapopie during a world citizen congress in Cahors.

1951

In a letter dated 17th February, Dubuffet informs Breton that Scottie Wilson has arrived in Paris: ‘It would be great if we could help him sell his drawings, because that's all he has to live on (five/six thousand), and his drawings are very beautiful.…'.

26th May: The tract High Frequency [Haute Fréquence] tract takes definitive stock of the Carrouges ' case and Surrealism's unambiguous stance on Christianity or any other religion. ‘For us, it goes without saying that the Judeo-Christian religion remains, in the truest sense of the word, man's bitter enemy.'

12th October: Signs the tract Déclaration préalable tract explaining the surrealists’ collaboration with Libertaire, the anarchist federation weekly which regularly publishes ‘surrealists’ notes, reporting on both political and artistic events.

With ‘Yellow Sugar' [« Sucre jaune »], a collaboration begins between Breton, the surrealists and Arts. Camus having written an article in Les Cahiers du Sud  titled ‘Lautréamont and banality' [« Lautréamont et la banalité »], Breton is outraged by the platitude of his analyses, and opposes him with ‘the very handsome Lautréamont and Sade [Lautréamont et Sade] by Maurice Blanchot.

24th October: In an interview by André Parinaud for Opéra, Breton complains that all the media outlets are in the same hands, that surrealism is subtly censored, that certain works and non-figurative art are ‘swollen with publicity’, and that one always has to go through the market:  ‘It is no longer obvious, given the conditions in which art is produced today, that an equal of Daumier or Gauguin could "break through". The art galleries that sprang up in the twentieth century, and the commercial speculation that drives them more and more strictly, are likely to distort all relationships between the artist and the art lover'.

1952

March to June: Interviews [Entretiens] on the radio with André Parinaud that will be published the same year by Gallimard.

1st May: Publishes in Arts  ‘Socialist realism as a means for moral extermination' draws a line under the polemic with Aragon and Les Lettres françaises. Breton states: ‘It's obvious that we've never gone so far in the ‘aberrant’, in the platitude that courts emphasis.’

October: René Alleau's lectures until June 1953 on alchemy’s classic texts.

5th December: Inauguration, rue du Pré-aux-Clercs, of the À l'Étoile scellée gallery.

1953

March: Publication by éditions Sokolova of a monography on Toyen.

August: Publication of Free Rein [La Clé des champs] whose publication had been delayed because of ‘its anti-militarist and anti-religious spirit' .

November: Publication of the first issue of Médium, informations surréalistes, edited by Jean Schuster.

4th December: Gives an oration at Picabia's funeral ‘I Don’t Like Saying Goodbye’ [This is a play on ' « Adieu ne plaise »' (God forbid!)].

1954

May: Publication of Médium, nouvelle série no. 3 illustrated by Svanberg.

August: On the 11th, publishes Arts the text ‘Triumph of Gallic art’. Breton had discovered Gallic art with L. Lengyel's book Gallic art in medals [L'Art gaulois dans les médailles], published the same year.

1955

January: Publication of Médium, nouvelle série no. 4, with a cover and an illustrations by Lam, presented by Péret. Two texts by Breton: the first is ‘Surrealism in its living works' [« Du surréalisme en ses œuvres vives »], a philosophical text that insists on Surrealism's contribution to the philosophies of language and its links with the occult sciences, but also - and this distinguishes it from other forms of thought - on the ‘keystone’ role of woman and love. The second text, ‘The hanging bridge' [« Le pont suspendu »] tells about three experiences of premonition, including one concerning a painting by Fernandez.

18th February - 2nd April: For the Musée pédagogique participates with Charles Estienne  to organise the huge exhibition The continuity of Gallic art [Pérennité de l'art gaulois].

1956

January: Signs the tract ‘Warning label' [« Cote d'alerte »] which appeals for the creation of a ‘Committee of Action against Fascism and Colonialism'.

February: Prefaces Marcelle Loubchansky's exhibition at Kléber's gallery.

12th April: Participates closely in the tract ‘Now it's the turn of the bloody liveries!' [« Au tour des livrées sanglantes ! »] written by Jean Schuster.

The surrealist position is put into perspective following the XXth Congress of the Communist Party. It ends with this exhortation : ‘Extirpate from the working class the Stalinist venom that has paralysed it'.

3rd May: Writes an introduction for the sale of 170 watercolours by Aloys Zötl at the Hôtel Drouot.

Octobre : Parution du premier numéro de la revue Le Surréalisme, même, dont il prend la direction avec Jean Schuster.

In the face of the crushing of the Hungarian revolution, signs the Hongrie, Soleil Levant tract. The tract, written by Schuster but titled by Breton, ends with capital letters by these words: ‘Fascists are those who shoot at the people'.

With numerous intellectuals (K. Axelos, A. Césaire…)participates in the creation of the International Circle of Revolutionary Intellectuals, which raises the question of the role of intellectuals in the revolutionary movement.

1957

February: With Masson and Hans Bellmer Breton attends the lecture by Bataille ‘Erotism and fascination with deat' [« L'Érotisme et la fascination de la mort »]. According to Bellmer, Breton had been the first one to greet his book A Brief Anatomy of the Physical Unconscious or Anatomy of the Image [Petite anatomie de l'inconscient physique ou Anatomie de l'image], in 1953.

25th May: Publication of Magic Art [L'Art magique]. This book, completed with the help of Gérard Legrand, kept him busy for almost four years.

1958

July: Writes the text ‘Too much for us' [« Trop pour nous »] for the 14 Juillet review founded by Dionys Mascolo and Jean Schuster, which warns France against certain ‘providential’ aspects of great men...

7th to 8th October: Prefaces the young Breton painter Yves Laloy's exhibition, displayed at the La Cour d’Ingres gallery.

15th November: Publication of Bief, jonction surréaliste's first issue edited by Gérard Legrand, editorial secretary J.-C. Silbermann.

December: Publication of an introduction to Miró's Constellations, 22 gouaches painted between the 21st of January 1940 and the 12th of September 1941, for L'Œil. The text will be edited by Maeght the following year.

1959

August: From Saint-Cirq, Breton sends an invitation to artists to contribute to the VIIIe International exhibition of surrealism  which will be held at the Daniel Cordier gallery, from the 15th of December 1959 to the 15th of February 1960, and whose theme will be Eros.

Deaths of B. Péret, J.-P. Duprey and W. Paalen, three losses which greatly affect him.

1960

1st September: Writes with J. Schuster, D. Mascolo and M. Blanchot the Declaration on the right to insubordination in the Algerian war [Déclaration sur le droit à l'insoumission dans la guerre d'Algérie]:  it is the famous statement  ‘des 121', which was only clandestinely distributed.

28th November: In New-York, the exhibition Surrealist Intrusion in the Enchanter's Domain opens at the d'Arcy Galleries. Curators André Breton and Marcel Duchamp, organisation José Pierre and Édouard Jaguer.

1961

May: With José Pierre and Tristan Sauvage, organises an international exhibition of Surrealism at the Schwarz gallery in Milan.

Answers the Connaissance des Arts survey about the ten best living artists. Names Brauner, Degottex, Hantaï, Lam, Lapicque, Magritte, Matta,Miró, Svanberg, Toyen.

October: Creation of a new surrealist review, La Brèche, edited by André Breton, editorial committee R. Benayoun, G. Legrand, José Pierre.

1962

29th January: Pronounces a speech at the Père-Lachaise columbarium, in honor of Natalia Sedova Trotski.

 Signs an article with Charles Estienne, Édouard Jaguer and José Pierre in Combat-Art: ‘Compass' [« Boussole »]. The four signatories ‘aim to disentangled from the current imbroglio (sustained with a great deal of advertising and hiding behind a pseudo-philosophical logorrhea that cannot be denounced enough), the lines of force that specifically govern today's art’.

July: Publication in L'Œil of a very long and illustrated article by Breton on the Italian artist Baj.

1963

April: For Combat-Art, 1st April - 6th May, signs with É. Jaguer and J. Pierre the following article, ‘Stand to attention!' [« À vos rangs, fixe ! »] which condemns ‘the return to the subject' trends especially seen in the last Salon de mai.

1964

April: Prefaces the Camacho exhibition at the galerie Mathias Fels gallery. 

In the statement ‘Facing the liquidators' [« Face aux liquidateurs »] which was published in Combat-Art on 23rd April, the day before the opening of the exhibition Surrealism, sources, history and affinities [Le surréalisme, sources, histoire et affinités] organised by Patrick Waldberg at the Charpentier gallery, the entire group reasserts the fundamental contribution of Surrealism to contemporary art.

10th December: Gives an interview to Guy Dumur for Le Nouvel Observateur in which he mentions the impact of Surrealism on the youth and in Eastern Europe, pop art and happenings, but also sex education - or rather ‘initiation’ - and the contemporary Left, which suffers from its ‘shameful tolerance of the worst crimes of Stalinism’.

1965

February: Prefaces the Klapheck's exhibition at the Sonnabend gallery,the last one he will ever write for an artist.

December: Opening of the IXth International Surrealist exhibition, The Absolute Gap [L'Écart Absolu] at L’Œil gallery, exhibition dedicated to Fourier, who is quoted at length by Breton in his text ‘Generic' [« Générique »], the foreword to the catalogue.

As the tract ‘Tranchons-en' - distributed during the exhibition - demonstrates, the aim is to take a stand against the ‘one-upmanship of the sensational’, ‘the vertiginous erosion of the most elementary moral notions […and] the widespread downgrading of culture’, in other words to fight against this consumption-based civilisation by giving this exhibition ‘an overall ideological sense’, whereas the others were ‘acts of collective lyricism’.

Gallimard publishes a new, revised and corrected version of Surrealism and painting, 1928-1965 [Surréalisme et la peinture, 1928-1965].

1966

Early spring, goes back to Brittany to see again the places he loved.

19th April: Writes and signs most of the collective statement, for the last time, Neither today, neither this way [Ni aujourd'hui, ni de cette manière].

16th May: Reprint of the Anthology of black humour [Anthologie de l'humour noir] by Jean-Jacques Pauvert, with a foreword by Breton to highlight that he invented the notion of ‘black humour'.

28th September 1966: Death of André Breton, who had been suffering from bronchial disease for a long time.
 He is buried on 1st October in the Batignolles cemetery. The inscription on his tomb bore only this note:

‘André Breton 1896-1966. I seek the gold of time’.
[« André Breton 1896-1966. Je cherche l'or du temps. »]