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I will be free

10 handwritten notebooks by the surrealist group

Manuscript

Author

Author Simone Kahn, ép. Breton puis Collinet

Description

Notebook made up of typographic collages and a manuscript by Simone Kahn, dating from 1924.

‘I will be free’ writes Simone Kahn – in other words, since 1921, Simone Breton. ‘I called loudly upon sleep’ she wrote two pages earlier, with these two mottos bringing together the essence of the surrealist experience in its first years. In this spring of 1924 (one of the automatic texts making up this collection is dated 20^th April) she was a full participant in the activities of a group that at this time was full of energy. Here, Simone Kahn devotes herself to two major genres invented by the group: automatism and collages made from newspaper headings, a ‘surrealist game’ discovered in May 1924. In one of the collages we find mention of ‘the young anarchist’, doubtless Germaine Berton whose cause was defended by the group after she killed a member of the camelots du roi [a far-right militant group]. [Atelier André Breton website, 2005]

Handwritten manuscript, 1924
- In-8° notebook with a detached cover, comprising 7 pages of collage texts of automatic writing made from press cuttings and 17 manuscript pages in ink:
‘One day a lifeboat found a flat and translucent seaweed which had human veins floating on the sea. This is how they knew that the captain was dead.’ [Auction catalogue, 2003]

Bibliography

- Katia Sowels et Jules Colmart éd., Un album, André à Simone Breton, ENS, rue d'Ulm, Paris, 2020.

- Georges Sebbag éd., Dix cahiers surrréalistes, avril 1924, Jean-Michel Place / Dilecta, Albias / Paris, 2021. Rep. p. 79 - 103.