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No sooner arrived than the orange blossom took charge

10 handwritten notebooks by the surrealist group

Manuscript

Author

Author Benjamin Péret

Description

Typographic collage by Benjamin Péret, dated spring 1924.

Benjamin Péret in May 1924. We know it is May because the elements of some of these collages (such as ‘The first of May’), like Morise’s, clearly refer to this merry month during which one of the most entertaining ‘surrealist games’ was invented, making collages from newspaper headings. Péret, as we can see, pushes the game towards the calligrammes invented by Apollinaire by playing on their visual aspects more than his comrades do. Loyal to Breton, along with Naville Péret would be the first director of La Révolution surréaliste; perhaps the fish that appears in one of these collages anticipates the one that embellished the journal’s first issue, in December 1924. [Atelier André Breton website, 2005] 

Handwritten manuscript, 1924 
In-8° notebook comprising three automatic collage texts made from press cuttings, with the third one being on a different paper from that of the notebook. 
‘No sooner arrived than the orange blossom took charge, Europe committed suicide, there was a duel between the eagle and the serpent, the railway stations overrun in seeking snails at the lift door.’ 
Breton has written Benjamin Péret’s name on the notebook’s cover (the cover is detached). [Auction catalogue, 2003]

Bibliography

- Georges Sebbag éd., Dix cahiers surrréalistes, avril 1924, Jean-Michel Place / Dilecta, Albias / Paris, 2021. Rep. p. 161 - 167.

 

Creation dateavril 1924
Date of publication 1924
LanguagesFrench
Physical descriptioncollages sur 2 pages de cahier in-8° et un insert papier à en-tête de Littérature
Library

Bibliothèque municipale de Nantes : Ms 3487

Size21,80 cm
Number of pages28 p - 1 feuillet
Reference174000
Breton Auction, 2003Lot 2067
Keywords,
CategoriesSurrealists Manuscripts
Set[Archives] textes surréalistes ; cahiers surréalistes ; cachet
Permanent linkhttps://www.andrebreton.fr/en/work/56600100678230