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[On Picasso's portrait of Stalin]

Manuscript

Author

Author André Breton
People cited Georges Braque, Dudule, Joseph Staline, Pablo Picasso

Description

Manuscript by André Breton, dated 19 March 1953 and published in Paris-Presse-L'intransigeant on 22 March.

Published in Paris-Presse-L'intransigeant on 22 March 1953, this scathing text looks back at a recent scandal: the portrait of Stalin published by Aragon on the cover of Les Lettres françaises, which caused the Party leaders and militants to grind their teeth. Breton jeered and took the opportunity to make a point. Not content with recalling the incompatibility of art and politics (a thesis already formulated in 1938 with Trotsky), he makes a more direct accusation against the quasi-police ‘brigade’ of Stalinists who were attempting to control the literary and artistic world. [Atelier André Breton website, 2005]

Signed autograph manuscript 19 March 1953.

- 1 page in-4°, handwritten, dated and signed by Breton in ink, with some erasures and corrections:

" I am amongst those for whom the discovery of Picasso's ‘Stalin’ on the front page of Les Lettres françaises, during the mid-Lent festival, was a good laugh. We had been waiting for this portrait for around fifteen years and we knew that it wouldn’t be well-received. The only question was, how would he get away with it... In this portrait, some people thought they recognised the ‘burlesque’ actor, Ben Turpin, known in France as ‘Dudule’... Everyone knows that, from its origins up to the present day, Picasso’s work is the unbridled negation of so-called Socialist Realism...." [Auction Catalogue, 2003]

Bibliography

- André Breton, « Le Staline de Picasso, c'est Dudule », Paris-Presse-L'intransigeant, 22-23 mars 1953
- André Breton (Édition de Marguerite Bonnet avec la collaboration de Philippe Bernier, Marie-Claire Dumas, Étienne-Alain Hubert et José Pierre), « [Sur le portrait de Staline par Picasso] », Alentours II, Œuvres complètes, tome III, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Paris, Gallimard, 1999, p. 1096-1097, notice p. 1464