Grand Air. (Les Yeux Fertiles)
Picasso, Pablo & Paul Eluard
Paris. (G[uy]. L[évis]. M[ano].). 1936
A very scarce proof example of 'Grand Air', the remarkable collaborative Surrealist etching by Eluard and Picasso, aside from the edition of ten copies issued with the book 'Les Yeux Fertiles' and inscribed 'épreuve d'artiste'.
Aside from the edition limited to ten copies on vergé de Montval with this proof inscribed 'épreuve d'artiste' at lower right in pencil; the sheet is also inscribed in pencil verso: 'Les yeux fertiles / de Paul ELUARD'.
Baer cites a number of proof examples aside from the ten issued with the édition de tête of the book 'Les Yeux Fertiles', listed as being on various paper stocks: Chine volant, Japon, vergé d'Auvergne and vergé de Montval. The present example is cited: '1 épreuve sur vergé de Montval annotée par l'éditeur [GLM, i.e. Guy Lévis Mano] 'épreuve d'artiste'; Baer also cites another example with the same inscription (on a sheet of slightly smaller size and possibly a different stock) in the collection of MoMA.
Paul Eluard's poem 'Grand Air' forms the centre of this famous Surrealist collaboration. A manuscript poem of eighteen lines with title above and dated '3-6-36' and with the precise time '3 heures - 3 heures 15' beneath is surrounded by Picasso's pictorial frame signed in the plate at lower left and dated '4-juin-XXXVI: at right, a nude female minotaur, the mask opposite, at left, out of which the minotaur seems to have snatched the left eye above a rocky landscape with a reclining, smoking figure with cat beneath; that the cat appears to be suckling three small black fish underlines the essential Surrealism of the whole.
The etching with scraper was produced from Eluard and Picasso's originals on Kodatrace by Roger Lacourière using heliogravure to transfer the images to the copper plate. The resulting print on papier de Montval was issued only with the the édition de tête - all printed on Japon Impérial - of Paul Eluard's verse collection 'Les Yeux Fertiles'. The collection gathered Eluard's eight poems from 'La Barre d'Appui', the eighteen poems of 'Grand Air' (including the poem printed on the etching) and the poems from 'Facile'; as seems clear - both 'La Barre d'Appui' and 'Facile' were devoted to her also - the focus of the whole was Nusch.
The édition de tête of 'Les Yeux Fertiles' was issued at a size of 210 x 153 mm while the accompanying etching was printed on a sheet c.510 x 320 mm. As a result few copies remain together and the majority of examples of the etching are separate. The etching is signed by both Eluard and Picasso in the plate but apart from some copies signed by Eluard, Baer records only two impressions signed by Picasso, both at a later date (one of these, at least, dates to 1968).
The period 1935 - 1936 was significant for Picasso. At the height of his short period as a Surrealist, he painted little, wrote poetry and experimented with etching producing some undoubted masterpieces. The minotaur as a symbol and figure obsessed Picasso, one sees it in his 'La Minotauromachie', called by Alfred Barr 'the greatest single print thus far produced in this century', the 'Faune Dévoilant une Dormeuse (Jupiter et Antiope, d'Après Rembrandt)', the Suite Vollard and his wider oeuvre. Picasso produced the female minotaur in 'Grand Air' between the 'Minotauromachie' and the 'Faune Dévoilant une Dormeuse' and the figure is unique in Picasso's work. If the male minotaur signified violence, guilt, desire, anguish and despair, all felt by Picasso at a time when Marie-Thérèse Walther was pregnant and his marriage to Olga Khokhlova was all but over, it is interesting to consider the significance and implication of its female counterpart.
'Eluard wrote a poem, 'Grand Air', on a plate which he signed and dated very precisely ('3.6.36 / 3 heures - 3.15 heures') and which Picasso decorated on all sides with an etching signed and dated '4 juin XXXVI'. The etching shows a radiant woman with minotaur's horns on her head (this is unique in Picasso's oeuvre), holding a reflecting mirror in her right hand. To the left is a frightening mask and, below it, a sketched landscape. At the bottom of the composition is the Surrealist figure of a woman stretched out on a bed.' (Cramer).
[Baer 608/III/B; see Cramer 27].
Aside from the edition limited to ten copies on vergé de Montval with this proof inscribed 'épreuve d'artiste' at lower right in pencil; the sheet is also inscribed in pencil verso: 'Les yeux fertiles / de Paul ELUARD'.
Baer cites a number of proof examples aside from the ten issued with the édition de tête of the book 'Les Yeux Fertiles', listed as being on various paper stocks: Chine volant, Japon, vergé d'Auvergne and vergé de Montval. The present example is cited: '1 épreuve sur vergé de Montval annotée par l'éditeur [GLM, i.e. Guy Lévis Mano] 'épreuve d'artiste'; Baer also cites another example with the same inscription (on a sheet of slightly smaller size and possibly a different stock) in the collection of MoMA.
Paul Eluard's poem 'Grand Air' forms the centre of this famous Surrealist collaboration. A manuscript poem of eighteen lines with title above and dated '3-6-36' and with the precise time '3 heures - 3 heures 15' beneath is surrounded by Picasso's pictorial frame signed in the plate at lower left and dated '4-juin-XXXVI: at right, a nude female minotaur, the mask opposite, at left, out of which the minotaur seems to have snatched the left eye above a rocky landscape with a reclining, smoking figure with cat beneath; that the cat appears to be suckling three small black fish underlines the essential Surrealism of the whole.
The etching with scraper was produced from Eluard and Picasso's originals on Kodatrace by Roger Lacourière using heliogravure to transfer the images to the copper plate. The resulting print on papier de Montval was issued only with the the édition de tête - all printed on Japon Impérial - of Paul Eluard's verse collection 'Les Yeux Fertiles'. The collection gathered Eluard's eight poems from 'La Barre d'Appui', the eighteen poems of 'Grand Air' (including the poem printed on the etching) and the poems from 'Facile'; as seems clear - both 'La Barre d'Appui' and 'Facile' were devoted to her also - the focus of the whole was Nusch.
The édition de tête of 'Les Yeux Fertiles' was issued at a size of 210 x 153 mm while the accompanying etching was printed on a sheet c.510 x 320 mm. As a result few copies remain together and the majority of examples of the etching are separate. The etching is signed by both Eluard and Picasso in the plate but apart from some copies signed by Eluard, Baer records only two impressions signed by Picasso, both at a later date (one of these, at least, dates to 1968).
The period 1935 - 1936 was significant for Picasso. At the height of his short period as a Surrealist, he painted little, wrote poetry and experimented with etching producing some undoubted masterpieces. The minotaur as a symbol and figure obsessed Picasso, one sees it in his 'La Minotauromachie', called by Alfred Barr 'the greatest single print thus far produced in this century', the 'Faune Dévoilant une Dormeuse (Jupiter et Antiope, d'Après Rembrandt)', the Suite Vollard and his wider oeuvre. Picasso produced the female minotaur in 'Grand Air' between the 'Minotauromachie' and the 'Faune Dévoilant une Dormeuse' and the figure is unique in Picasso's work. If the male minotaur signified violence, guilt, desire, anguish and despair, all felt by Picasso at a time when Marie-Thérèse Walther was pregnant and his marriage to Olga Khokhlova was all but over, it is interesting to consider the significance and implication of its female counterpart.
'Eluard wrote a poem, 'Grand Air', on a plate which he signed and dated very precisely ('3.6.36 / 3 heures - 3.15 heures') and which Picasso decorated on all sides with an etching signed and dated '4 juin XXXVI'. The etching shows a radiant woman with minotaur's horns on her head (this is unique in Picasso's oeuvre), holding a reflecting mirror in her right hand. To the left is a frightening mask and, below it, a sketched landscape. At the bottom of the composition is the Surrealist figure of a woman stretched out on a bed.' (Cramer).
[Baer 608/III/B; see Cramer 27].
(510 x 320 mm). Original monochrome etching with scraper (see below) by Picasso with Eluard's engraved autograph text, signed in the plate by Eluard and Picasso, dated in the plate '3.6.36' by Eluard and '4 juin / XXXVI' by Picasso, printed by Roger Lacourière, Paris on laid vergé de Montval paper with the Montgolfier watermark; sheet size: 509 x 332, plate size: 416 x 316 mm.
#48598
