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It has long been known...

[In response to Hantaï’s exhibition at the Galerie Kléber]

Manuscript

Author

Author André Breton
People cited Jean-Baptiste Biaggi, Siger de Brabant, Francisco Franco, Georges Goldfayn, Simon Hantaï, Georges de Lacoste, Karl Marx, Guy Mollet, Harry Salem dit Henri Alleg, Jean-Paul Sartre, Salvador Dalí

Description

Manuscript by André Breton dated 12 March 1958.

Responding once more to the series of events organised at the Galerie Kléber in March 1959 commemorating the second Condemnation of Siger of Brabant, Breton took the opportunity to attack those who had used surrealism as a stepping-stone. Behind the renegades directly charged here, such as Hantaï who had taken part in organising the commemoration, Dalí is particularly in view – Avida Dollars, the symbol of a corrupting impulse that, not content with undermining the coherence of the surrealist group, intends to promote its instrumentalization in the interests of his career.

Signed handwritten manuscript, Paris, 12 March 1958.
2 in-4° manuscript pages in ink by Breton, with numerous deletions and corrections, of a forcefully critical text against Salvador Dalí, the painter Georges Mathieu and his ‘patronage last year at the Galerie Kléber in the form of ceremonies commemorating the Condemnation of Siger of Brabant.

The phoney side of Dalí’s activities and the showy notoriety it affords him have promptly incited an ‘abstract’ artist like Mathieu to follow in his footsteps (for instance in titling one of his daubs ‘The Battle of Bouvines’ and then, along with an accomplice, both in armour, parking his Rolls Royce in Bouvines under the spotlights).’ [Auction catalogue, 2003]

Translated by Krzysztof Fijalkowski 

Bibliography

André Breton (Édition publiée sous la direction d'Étienne-Alain Hubert avec la collaboration de Philippe Bernier et Marie-Claire Dumas), « Autour de l'exposition Hantaï », Inédits, Œuvres complètes, tome IV, Écrits sur l'art et autres textes, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Paris, Gallimard, 2008, pages 1152 à 1154, notes p. 1475.