Description

Published in French for the first time in the third volume of the Œuvres complètes, this text was drafted on 1 July 1941 for the Sydney-based journal Art in Australia. It was published in December of that year. A pacifist and internationalist, Breton evokes a situation that continues to worry him. Under these circumstances, in his view, the artist’s position must more than ever return to his or her creative practice, without betraying either its originality or its freedom. This theme of originality also arises at the same period in his speech delivered to the Rescue Committee Lunch. [Atelier André Breton website, 2005]

Signed handwritten manuscript, New York, 1 July 1941
- 1 1/2 in-4° pages, first draft manuscript with tightly spaced writing, dated and signed by André Breton in green ink with deletions and corrections, on the reverse side of headed notepaper for the Hôtel Europa, Dominican Republic of this text relating to the challenges to art and artists in times of war:
“Human thought, to-day, is greatly humiliated. [...] Human thought is humiliated in the sense that it is compelled to note, to affirm, from day to day, a series of events which do not have any bearing at all upon rational intelligence, and which are related solely to barbarism. [...] 

In such events, I deem that, as long as there remains a rostrum, the voice of the poet, of the artist, inasmuch as it carries farthest, ought to be the most loudly heard. […]

In our modern day, these explorers are called: Holderlin, Novalis, Nerval, Blake, Poe, Baudelaire, Browning, Lautreamont, Rimbaud, Apollinaire, Lorca; they are called Hogarth, Goya, Courbet, Van Gogh, Seurat. One strong, self-evident line runs through these names, pointing not toward the past, but toward the  

future, charged with warning weight upon our way. […]

Originality, ever greater originality in art, ought to be sought as the supreme antidote for the poison of the times in which we are living.” 

(La Pléiade, volume III, Inédits I, pages 178-81). [Auction catalogue, 2003]

 

Translated by Krzysztof Fijalkowski

Bibliography

- André Breton, (Édition de Marguerite Bonnet avec la collaboration de Philippe Bernier, Marie-Claire Dumas, Étienne-Alain Hubert et José Pierre), Originalité et Liberté, Inédits I, Œuvres complètes, tome III, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Paris, Gallimard, 1999, pages 178-181.
- Paru en décembre 1942 in Art in Australia.

Creation date	01-juil.-41
Bibliographical material	1 1/2 in-4° pages.
Date of publication	1941
Languages	French
Physical description	Ms - encre verte
Library	Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet, Paris : BRT 77
Breton Auction, 2003	Lot 2234
Keywords	Speeches, New York, Philosophy, Poetry
Categories	Andre Breton's Manuscripts
Set	[AB's Manuscripts] Miscellaneous Manuscripts
Exhibition	Discours du 27 juin 1941
Permanent link	https://www.andrebreton.fr/en/work/56600100748670

Description

Manuscript of a speech given by André Breton to the ‘Rescue Committee’ on 27 June 1941.

Published in the ‘Alentours Inédits’ Section I of the third volume of the Pléiade Œuvres completes, this speech, according to the manuscript, was composed on 25 June 1941 and delivered at a lunch given on 27 June 1941 to new arrivals, the aim of the meal specifically being to promote assistance for Germans who had fled Nazism. We know that Breton was particularly careful not to allow patriotism to slide into nationalism, and this lunch reinforced his position. He was accompanied at the lunch, by Chagall and Lipchitz, amongst others.

Two manuscripts exist: a final copy, owned by a collector, and this one, which is the first draft. [Atelier André Breton website, 2005]

Autograph manuscript signed, 25 June 1941.

- 2 in-8° pages handwritten in green ink of the text delivered by Breton at the lunch of the ‘Rescue Committee’, in which he is requesting the Committee to continue their commitment to allow Chagall, Masson, and Lipschitz to pursue their work. The first page, entitled 'Au lunch du Rescue Committee', dated and signed '25 June 1941', with deletions and corrections, is a first draft manuscript, and the second page is the final version of the same text, with some corrections. (Œuvres completes, Volume III, pages 177, 178). [Sale Catalogue, 2003]

Bibliography

- André Breton, (Édition de Marguerite Bonnet avec la collaboration de Philippe Bernier, Marie-Claire Dumas, Étienne-Alain Hubert et José Pierre), Au lunch du "Rescue Committee", Inédits I, Œuvres complètes, tome III, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Paris, Gallimard, 1999, pages 177-178.

Creation date	25-juin-41
Bibliographical material	2 pages in-8° - Ms - green ink Original Version: Français
Date of publication	1941
Languages	French
Physical description	Ms - encre verte
Number of pages	2 p.
Reference	82000
Breton Auction, 2003	Lot 2233
Keywords	Speeches, New York, Work notes, Politics
Categories	Andre Breton's Manuscripts
Set	[AB's Manuscripts] Miscellaneous Manuscripts
Exhibition	Discours du 27 juin 1941
Permanent link	https://www.andrebreton.fr/en/work/56600100706850