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Sleeping fit by Robert Desnos

First hypnotic sleeping fits

Manuscript

Author

Author Robert Desnos
People cited Louis Aragon, Jacques Baron, Germaine Everling, Paul Éluard, Francis Picabia, Elena Dmitrovnia Diakonova, dite Gala Éluard puis Dalí, Simone Kahn, ép. Breton puis Collinet, André Breton, Robert Desnos
Notes by André Breton

Description

Manuscripts and drawings from a sleeping fit representing portraits of the surrealists.

Various styles alternate in this series of drawings, from a very fine head that is reminiscent of the works of Cocteau, and those ‘abstract portraits’ that are sometimes found in Desnos’ sleeping fits. These seem to be, so to speak, commissioned works... with the séance apparently proceeding in the form of questions (some of them re-transcribed) to which the dreamer responds with drawings. In among the gallery of portraits of Picabia, Baron, Gala (the wife of Éluard and then later Dalì), and of ‘me’ (meaning Desnos) slips the figure of Rrose Sélavy (Duchamp), who would more and more distinctly characterise Desnos’ dream imagination. One might note the proximity of these drawings to future products of Outsider Art, particularly by Dubuffet, one of Breton’s major post-war discoveries: it is as though a guiding principle starts here.

First hypnotic sleeping fits .
- 14 in-8° and in-4° manuscript pages in black or blue ink with questions from Breton and drawings.
Some drawings have titles: Éluard, Simone, Baron, Gala, Aragon.
One of the drawings in blue ink is a portrait of André Breton titled by Desnos.