The International Surrealist Exhibition. Thursday, June 11th to Saturday, July 4th, 1936
Surrealism. Breton, André (Preface) and Herbert Read (Introduction)
London. New Burlington Galleries. 1936
Gaston Ferdiére's presentation copy of the scarce catalogue for the ambitious and highly influential International Surrealist Exhibition held in London in 1936 signed by a number of the participants.
Presented by Mesens in red ink: 'Exemplaire de Gaston Ferdière' and, beneath, the signatures of André Breton (in green), Hans Arp (in pencil), Roland Penrose (in blue ink), Claude Cahun (in blue grey), Sheila Legge, Rupert Lee and David Gascoyne (all in sepia), Paul Eluard (in black ink) and Man Ray (in pencil); the following leaf with advertisements (and adjacent to the details of the committee, list of contributors etc.) features an inscription in black ink by Conroy Maddox: 'Refused to participate / Conroy Maddox'.
Gaston Ferdière was a controversial figure, a Surrealist-affiliated poet who published verse in the mid-1930s, a doctor who administered to the Spanish Republicans in the Spanish Civil War and a psychiatrist, lauded and criticised for the electroshock therapy he administered to Antonin Artaud in the 1940s before Artaud's suicide in March, 1948. Ferdière was a friend of Breton, Crevel, Desnos and Péret, later Hans Bellmer and Unica Zûrn (who he also treated) and was anathemised by Isou (another patient) and the Lettrists along with psychiatrists and psychiatry in totality. At the titme of the London Surrealist Exhibition, Ferdière had published a small handful of verse collections: 'L'Herbier' (1926), 'La Chanson Fruste' (1927), 'Ma Sébile' (1931) and 'Paix sur la Terre - Poèmes pour les Théâtres Prolétariens d'Action Contre la Guerre' (1936).
'No one personifies the thorny entanglement between modernism and the science of the soul better than Dr. Gaston Ferdière, the psychiatrist who administered no less than 58 electroshock treatments to the Surrealist playwright Antonin Artaud during the Second World War. Determined to reconcile poetry and medicine, Ferdière had studied under 'Professor Claude' - target of Breton’s anti-psychiatric rants - at Sainte-Anne while at the same time passing as a 'star of Surrealism in the bistros' of Paris in the mid-1930s ... By the time Artaud showed up on his doorstep at Rodez psychiatric hospital, Ferdiére had long since abandoned his poetic aspirations. Yet his old interests were rekindled in long conversations with the Surrealist playwright, whose talents he sought to revive by a combination of 'art therapy' - writing, drawing, translating Lewis Carroll’s 'Through the Looking Glass' - and shock treatments - six courses ranging from 4 to 13 sessions each between June 20th, 1943 and January 24th, 1945. Electroshock was still in its experimental phase - the machine had hardly rolled in the door at Rodez - and the convulsions were so severe that Artaud fractured a vertebra in his neck during one of the treatments.' (Kevin Repp).
The International Surrealist Exhibition was held at the New Burlington Galleries from 11 June - 4 July 1936, organised by committees from England, France, Belgium and Scandinavia. The scale and range of works from artists was highly impressive (see a list of exhibiting artists below), and London was acting alongside Paris and New York in focusing on the new movement. In the same year Alfred Barr opened a show at the Museum of Modern Art, New York entitled 'Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism' and Paris' 'Cahiers d'Art' journal, then at the height of its influence, had devoted a whole issue to the Surrealist object.
The exhibition, comprising of some 390 works (painting, sculpture, drawing and objects), was opened by André Breton to some two thousand people, thereafter averaging a footfall of one thousand people per day. Lectures were delivered throughout the exhibition and included Salvador Dali's presentation from within a deep-sea diving suit, which, needless to say, put a strain on his respiratory system and resulted in his being rescued by the young poet David Gascoyne with a spanner.
It is also significant that one of the most legendary moments of the exhibition was the performance by Sheila Legge, who stood in the middle of Trafalgar Square in a white wedding dress (inspired by a Dali painting), her head obscured by a floral arrangement, prefiguring Feminist and Fluxus performances of some 20 years later.
Exhibiting artists included Eileen Agar, Jean Arp, Eugène Atget, Hans Bellmer, Jacques-André Boiffard, Bill Brandt, Victor Brauner, Fanny Brennan, Emmy Bridgwater, Luis Buñuel, Claude Cahun, Leonora Carrington, Ithell Colquhoun, Gala Dalí, Salvador Dalí, Jean Dallaire, Paul Delvaux, Óscar Domínguez, Christian Dotremont, Marcel Duchamp, Marcel Duhamel, Curt Echtermeyer, Max Ernst, Leonor Fini, Gordon Onslow Ford, Esteban Francés, Alberto Giacometti, Julio González, Jane Graverol, Jacques Hérold, Valentine Hugo, Frida Kahlo, Wifredo Lam, Jacqueline Lamba, Dora Maar, Conroy Maddox, René Magritte, Georges Malkine, Marcel Mariën, André Masson, Roberto Matta, Mikuláš Medek, Oscar Mellor, John Melville, E. L. T. Mesens, Lee Miller,Desmond Morris, Joan Miró, Méret Oppenheim, Wolfgang Paalen, Benjamín Palencia, Roland Penrose, Man Ray, Toni del Renzio, Kay Sage, Kurt Seligmann, André Souris, Martin Stejskal, Jindřich Štyrský, Maurice Tabard, Yves Tanguy, Dorothea TanningKarel Teige, Kristians Tonny, Toyen, Albert Valentin, Remedios Varo, James F. Walker, Unica Zürn, Philipp Humm.
Printed on very good laid paper by the 'Women's Printing Society', the contents are on the whole very good with some few scattered spots, while the cover, as can be expected, shows some signs of age.
[see Kevin Repp's 'The Strange Case of Dr. Ferdière', Yale, 2011; Ades 14.55].
Presented by Mesens in red ink: 'Exemplaire de Gaston Ferdière' and, beneath, the signatures of André Breton (in green), Hans Arp (in pencil), Roland Penrose (in blue ink), Claude Cahun (in blue grey), Sheila Legge, Rupert Lee and David Gascoyne (all in sepia), Paul Eluard (in black ink) and Man Ray (in pencil); the following leaf with advertisements (and adjacent to the details of the committee, list of contributors etc.) features an inscription in black ink by Conroy Maddox: 'Refused to participate / Conroy Maddox'.
Gaston Ferdière was a controversial figure, a Surrealist-affiliated poet who published verse in the mid-1930s, a doctor who administered to the Spanish Republicans in the Spanish Civil War and a psychiatrist, lauded and criticised for the electroshock therapy he administered to Antonin Artaud in the 1940s before Artaud's suicide in March, 1948. Ferdière was a friend of Breton, Crevel, Desnos and Péret, later Hans Bellmer and Unica Zûrn (who he also treated) and was anathemised by Isou (another patient) and the Lettrists along with psychiatrists and psychiatry in totality. At the titme of the London Surrealist Exhibition, Ferdière had published a small handful of verse collections: 'L'Herbier' (1926), 'La Chanson Fruste' (1927), 'Ma Sébile' (1931) and 'Paix sur la Terre - Poèmes pour les Théâtres Prolétariens d'Action Contre la Guerre' (1936).
'No one personifies the thorny entanglement between modernism and the science of the soul better than Dr. Gaston Ferdière, the psychiatrist who administered no less than 58 electroshock treatments to the Surrealist playwright Antonin Artaud during the Second World War. Determined to reconcile poetry and medicine, Ferdière had studied under 'Professor Claude' - target of Breton’s anti-psychiatric rants - at Sainte-Anne while at the same time passing as a 'star of Surrealism in the bistros' of Paris in the mid-1930s ... By the time Artaud showed up on his doorstep at Rodez psychiatric hospital, Ferdiére had long since abandoned his poetic aspirations. Yet his old interests were rekindled in long conversations with the Surrealist playwright, whose talents he sought to revive by a combination of 'art therapy' - writing, drawing, translating Lewis Carroll’s 'Through the Looking Glass' - and shock treatments - six courses ranging from 4 to 13 sessions each between June 20th, 1943 and January 24th, 1945. Electroshock was still in its experimental phase - the machine had hardly rolled in the door at Rodez - and the convulsions were so severe that Artaud fractured a vertebra in his neck during one of the treatments.' (Kevin Repp).
The International Surrealist Exhibition was held at the New Burlington Galleries from 11 June - 4 July 1936, organised by committees from England, France, Belgium and Scandinavia. The scale and range of works from artists was highly impressive (see a list of exhibiting artists below), and London was acting alongside Paris and New York in focusing on the new movement. In the same year Alfred Barr opened a show at the Museum of Modern Art, New York entitled 'Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism' and Paris' 'Cahiers d'Art' journal, then at the height of its influence, had devoted a whole issue to the Surrealist object.
The exhibition, comprising of some 390 works (painting, sculpture, drawing and objects), was opened by André Breton to some two thousand people, thereafter averaging a footfall of one thousand people per day. Lectures were delivered throughout the exhibition and included Salvador Dali's presentation from within a deep-sea diving suit, which, needless to say, put a strain on his respiratory system and resulted in his being rescued by the young poet David Gascoyne with a spanner.
It is also significant that one of the most legendary moments of the exhibition was the performance by Sheila Legge, who stood in the middle of Trafalgar Square in a white wedding dress (inspired by a Dali painting), her head obscured by a floral arrangement, prefiguring Feminist and Fluxus performances of some 20 years later.
Exhibiting artists included Eileen Agar, Jean Arp, Eugène Atget, Hans Bellmer, Jacques-André Boiffard, Bill Brandt, Victor Brauner, Fanny Brennan, Emmy Bridgwater, Luis Buñuel, Claude Cahun, Leonora Carrington, Ithell Colquhoun, Gala Dalí, Salvador Dalí, Jean Dallaire, Paul Delvaux, Óscar Domínguez, Christian Dotremont, Marcel Duchamp, Marcel Duhamel, Curt Echtermeyer, Max Ernst, Leonor Fini, Gordon Onslow Ford, Esteban Francés, Alberto Giacometti, Julio González, Jane Graverol, Jacques Hérold, Valentine Hugo, Frida Kahlo, Wifredo Lam, Jacqueline Lamba, Dora Maar, Conroy Maddox, René Magritte, Georges Malkine, Marcel Mariën, André Masson, Roberto Matta, Mikuláš Medek, Oscar Mellor, John Melville, E. L. T. Mesens, Lee Miller,Desmond Morris, Joan Miró, Méret Oppenheim, Wolfgang Paalen, Benjamín Palencia, Roland Penrose, Man Ray, Toni del Renzio, Kay Sage, Kurt Seligmann, André Souris, Martin Stejskal, Jindřich Štyrský, Maurice Tabard, Yves Tanguy, Dorothea TanningKarel Teige, Kristians Tonny, Toyen, Albert Valentin, Remedios Varo, James F. Walker, Unica Zürn, Philipp Humm.
Printed on very good laid paper by the 'Women's Printing Society', the contents are on the whole very good with some few scattered spots, while the cover, as can be expected, shows some signs of age.
[see Kevin Repp's 'The Strange Case of Dr. Ferdière', Yale, 2011; Ades 14.55].
pp. 32. 8vo. (155 x 240 mm). Leaf with advertisements recto and verso, leaf with title recto and committee and contributors verso, leaf with advertisement recto and preface by André Breton translated by David Gascoyne verso and on following leaf, leaf with advertisements recto and verso, leaf with explanatory note and catalogue of exhibitors and their works in alphabetical order, final leaf with printers' credit verso. Original publisher's pink stapled wrappers with printed collage by Max Ernst to front cover, later protective crystal wrappers.
#48773
