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Final hour

Manuscript

Author

Author André Breton
People cited Jean Benoît, Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, Victor Brauner, Roberto Echauren Matta

Description

Manuscript by André Breton written on 4 December 1959 about a performance on the eve of the EROS exhibition.

‘Dernière heure’ (‘Final Hour’) is a text with the air of a communiqué, of news in brief that Breton offers here, marked by the emotions of a ceremony of rare intensity: the Execution of the Last Testament of the Marquis de Sade, planned and delivered by Jean Benoît who timed his performance for the evening before the opening of the International Surrealist Exhibition of December 1959. The artist branded himself with the word SADE with a red-hot iron, prompting an even more extreme enthusiasm when Matta grabbed the iron so as to brand himself as well, and in so doing would be readmitted into the surrealist group. [Atelier André Breton website, 2005]

Handwritten manuscript, 4^th December 1959.
‘Dernière heure’, first draft of a handwritten manuscript dated, titled and signed in ink by Breton, with deletions and corrections on the back of a sheet of headed notepaper for E.R.O.S. of this text for the exhibition catalogue (the last on the list of contents), relating to the rehabilitation of Matta and Brauner (1 in-4° page).
‘The Execution of the Last Testament of the Marquis de Sade by Jean Benoît, on 2 December 1959, provoked on the part of one of its (Matta) such emotionally motivated gestures that were to his greatest credit’ (E.R.O.S. catalogue, page 143). [Auction catalogue, 2003]

Translated by Krzysztof Fijalkowski

Bibliography

André Breton et Marcel Duchamp, Exposition internationale du surréalisme, 1959-1960, Boite alerte, missives lascives, Paris, Galerie Daniel Cordier, 1959, dernier texte du catalogue.

Exhibition place