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Albagnac (engraver)

Manuscript

Author

Author André Breton
People cited Jean Albagnac, William Blake, Rodolphe Bresdin, Gustave Doré, Sigmund Freud, Heinrich Füssli, Charles Meryon, Arthur Rackham, Victorien Sardou, Pablo Picasso

Description

Hand-written manuscript signed by André Breton and dated December 7, 1961, paying homage to the engraver Albagnac.

In paying homage to the engraver Albagnac, who is linked to his ‘great precursors’, Gustave Moreau among them, Breton is recognising the importance of an art form, perhaps even more than a single artist. Engraving (drypoint and etching in this case) is not as well appreciated by the general public as it should be and is distinguished by precise and evocative images on the theme of needle and thread. (Atelier André Breton website, 2005]

Hand-written manuscript signed, Paris, 7 December, 1961
1 page in-12 manuscript, titled, dated and signed in ink by Breton, of a text about the engraver Albagnac, with erasures and corrections:
‘For Albagnac, as for most of his great predecessors, the propellant from which flight is expected is precisely the immemorial and ever all-powerful sexual symbolism that since Freud we have known governs myths and legends and unleashes our imaginative life both when we are asleep and when we are awake... Thanks to Albagnac, the changing songs of love and the effects of pollen curl up in Saint-Etienne smoke.’
Preface for a catalogue about Albagnac. [André Breton Auction, 2005]

*This entry was translated from the French by Michael Richardson.