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Painting repopulates itself

Manuscript

Author

Author Michel Butor
People cited Christian Chenard, René Magritte
Selected by André Breton

Description

Text by Michel Butor copied by Breton on the reverse of an invitation card, undated.

This comes from an assorted set of texts, some of which must have been published (hence the note at the bottom of the page added to a work and mentioning the discovery of an unknown source relating to the Douanier Rousseau); the note on Père Enfantin, Charles Fourier’s principal disciple, and especially a quote from Michel Butor about Magritte help suggest dating this collection to the 1960s, perhaps 1965, the year of the L'Ecart absolu exhibition held, as we know, under the auspices of Fourier, as well as the year of the republication of the definitive version of Surrealism and Painting. Judging from the archives, in any event, these are some of the last texts Breton drafted or copied. In this dossier are also found notes on de Sade, a bibliographic note on the editor Pierre André Benoit (several of whose works are contained in Breton’s library), games, bibliographic notations that might have been intended for an auction, and reading notes on painting that could also be linked to work for Surrealism and Painting. [Atelier André Breton website, 2005]

Handwritten manuscript, undated.
Handwritten text by Breton on the reverse of an invitation card transcribing a text by Michel Butor: ‘La Peinture se repeuple’ (‘Painting repopulates itself’) with a reference to Magritte’s painting La Condition humaine. [Auction catalogue, 2003]

Translated by Krzysztof Fijalkowski

Exhibition place