Dubuffet, Jean, illus.

Eugène Guillevic.  Les Murs.  (Paris): Les Éditions du Livre, (1950)



Unbound as issued (15 x 11  1/4  in.; 381 x 285 mm).  15 lithographs by Dubuffet (including front cover of wrappers) printed by Mourlot in 1945, text printed by Joseph Zichieri in 1950.  Publisher's lithographed wrappers.  Publisher's chemise and slipcase, printed spine label on chemise; some light wear to slipcase.

Artist & the Book 88; Bareiss/Toldeo p. 177; Logan/San Francisco 128;  Manet to Hockney 122;   Webel, L'Œuvre gravé et les livres illustrés par Jean Dubuffet pp. 34–38

Copy 122 of 150 copies on Montval (of a whole edition of 172) of one of Dubuffet's most important and influential illustrated books.  The powerful, dark lithographs, created at the very end of World War II, show "crude, powerful human figures against textured walls, many of which, 'pregnant with experience', have graffiti and other human markings.  The influence of Paul Klee and of children's drawings has been seen in this work.  Guillevic ...produced his first work as a poet in 1942, when he was a member of the Communist Party and fighting with the Resistance.  The poems of Les Murs parallel Dubuffet's evocation of their substance and function" (Manet to Hockney).  The morbid unease of these amazing lithographs parallels the work being done by many of his contemporaries in occupied and early post-war Paris, including Sartre, Genet, and Giacometti.