Hans Bellmer

Lionel Prejger, Paris
Librairie Les Argonautes, Paris
Collection particulière, Paris

Peter Webb & Robert Short, Hans Bellmer, Londres, 1985, illustré p. 219.

Executed on laid paper, laid down on canvas. Apart from some time staining, this work is in very good condition.
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signed 'Bellmer' (lower right) and dated '1957' (lower left), pencil and white gouache on grey paper. Executed in 1957.

"Hans Bellmer - dont le portrait de Bachelard nous plonge dans une rêverie inépuisable" (Jean-Claude Margonlin, Bachelard et les Arts plastiques, 1991, p. 181).

C'est sur les conseils de Max Ernst qu'en 1957, Bellmer envisage de faire une exposition de portraits d'artistes et d'écrivains. Dans les deux années qui suivent, il fait poser Brauner, Lam, Michaux, Matta, Man Ray, Duchamp et le philosophe Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962) dont l'oeuvre est le portrait.

Bachelard commença sa carrière en qualité de philosophe et de scientifique mais en vint à écrire, plus tard dans sa vie, de remarquables études sur la poésie française. Dans le célèbre texte du Dormeur éveillé, il a formulé l'idée selon laquelle notre appartenance au monde des images est plus forte, plus constitutive de notre être que notre appartenance au monde des idées. L'importance qu'il accordait aux rêves et aux associations libres le rendait particulièrement proche de Bellmer et des autres membres du groupe surréaliste.

 

"Hans Bellmer – whose portrait of Bachelard plunges us into an infinite reverie" (Jean-Claude Margonlin, Bachelard et les Arts plastiques, 1991, p. 181).

Following the advice of Max Ernst, in 1957 Hans Bellmer planned an exhibition of portraits of artists and writers.  During the following two years he sketched the faces of Brauner, Lam, Michaux, Matta, Man Ray, and Duchamp.  In the present work, executed as part of this series, he depicts the philosopher Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962).

Bachelard began his career as a philosopher of science but in later life wrote influential studies on French poetry.  In his celebrated text Le Dormeur éveillé, he expressed the idea that we belong to the world of images in a way that is more powerful, more essential to our being than our belonging to the world of ideas.  His emphasis on the importance of dreams and free association was closely allied to the ideas of Bellmer and his fellow Surrealists.