cendrars, blaise - sonia delaunay

4 sheets folio (together 78 1/2 x 14 in; 1990 x 355 mm) accordion-folded. Complete with the original parchment wrapper painted by Sonia Delaunay. 
Copy on "simili-Japon" paper, signed and numbered "139" in purple ink by Blaise Cendrars and inscribed in black ink by the poet to his friend, the Chilean painter Manuel Ortiz de Zarate: "A mon cher ami Ortiz de Zárate, fondateur de Buenos Aires. Pourquoi n'aères-tu pas la Rotonde. Noël 1916 B[laise].C[endrars]".
The edition was supposed to be 150 copies (so if all the copies are put together, it should reach the high of the Eiffel Tower) but so far, only about 70 copies have been located. 
Small tear repaired at a fold, some water drops, Sonia Delaunay's (or Blaise Cendrars) fingerprints on the upper part of the illustration, offsetting; Otherwise, an bright-colored copy in great condition.

Manuel Ortiz de Zárate (inscription) - private European collector

En français dans le texte, Paris, 1990, nº 344 - Castelman, A Century of Artists Books, pp. 168-169 (Used as illustration for the dust-jacket) - Peyré, Peinture et poésie, le dialogue par le livre, pp. 110-111.

Comprised of brightly colored arabesques, concentric circles, triangles, and rectangles, Delaunay-Terk's pochoir illustrations for Blaise Cendrars's poem and its radical format have made this a landmark in the history of the modern book. The poet and the artist conceived of this project as the first "simultaneous book." When closed, the accordion-folded volume can be slipped into a wrapper - here, a leaf of parchment with an original painting by Sonia Delaunay. Opened out vertically, the format facilitates the contrast of the darker themes of the poem with the vibrant dynamism of the illuminations that accompany it.

Written as a stream of consciousness, Cendrars's poem alternates between his memories of a train trip across Siberia in 1904 and thoughts of his girlfriend, Jehanne (probably a prostitute he was travelling with). Complementing the rhythms of the poem, Delaunay-Terk interspersed patches of color with the poet's staggered text, printed in twelve different fonts. The poem and the illustration both end with references to the Eiffel Tower and the ferris wheel, two architectural marvels of Paris at that time, further symbolizing modernity and the experiences of simultaneity that urban life provided.

Manuel Ortiz de Zárate (1896-1946) was a Chilean painter, son of Chilean composer Eleodoro Ortiz de Zárate. After studying painting with Pedro Lira, he joined the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Santiago. IN 1904, he sailed to Marseille and then Paris. He became friend with the avant-garde artists such as Blaise Cendrars, Pablo Picasso, Max Jacob, Jean Cocteau... He lived in the same building with Amadeo Modigliani (who drew his portrait, today in the Museo de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires and was the one who found his friend dying in January 1920). 

With Blaise Cendrars, in 1916, Ortiz de Zárate convinced their friend Emile Lejeune to open his workshop, 6 Huygens street, in the neighbourhood of Montparnasse in Paris. 
They created the artistic association "Lyre et Palette". 
During the two last years of the Great War, when public concerts were prohibited in Paris, the two young artists organized exhibitions of paintings (by Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani, Ortiz de Zárate, of course, Kisling, Braque, Juan Gris...), concerts of music (by Ravel, Debussy, Satie, Germaine Tailleferre, Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger... Francis Poulenc also attemped to the concerts), and poetry lectures (Cendrars, obviously, Apollinaire, Cocteau, Salmon, Max Jacob, Reverdy...).
The place was the hot spot of the emerging artistic Parisiano-Bohemian scene. 

The super-bright colours and the association make the copy incredibly attractive.