Éluard, Paul

La Barre d'appui.  (Paris): Éditions "Cahiers d'Art", (1936)



Small 4to, unbound as issued (8 1/2 x 6 1/4 in.; 216 x 159 mm, uncut and unopened).  3 very fine etchings with aquatint (lift ground process) by Pablo Picasso, typography by and text printed by Aimé Jourde, etchings printed by Roger Lacourière.  Original stiff wrappers covered in japon ancien with flower petal inclusions, printed japon label mounted on front cover; minimal wear.

Max Ernst (presentation inscription)

Artist & the Book 227; Castleman, Century 185; Cramer 26

Small 4to, unbound as issued (8 1/2 x 6 1/4 in.; 216 x 159 mm, uncut and unopened). 3 very fine etchings with aquatint (lift ground process) by Pablo Picasso, typography by and text printed by Aimé Jourde, etchings printed by Roger Lacourière. Original stiff wrappers covered in japon ancien with flower petal inclusions, printed japon label mounted on front cover; minimal wear.
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Presentation copy, inscribed in pencil by Éluard to Max Ernst  on the initial blank, "Exemplaire de mon ami Max Ernst.  Paul Éluard."  Copy 25 of a whole edition of 40, signed in pencil by Éluard and Picasso.  This important collaboration marks the beginning of the long friendship between the poet and the painter, who had been introduced to one another the previous year by Christian Zervos.  The poems are dedicated to Éluard's wife Maria Bens, known as Nusch.  Picasso's first etching here a portrait of Nusch.  The second is a portrait of his own mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter sleeping against the background of a landscape.  The third is a dense surrealist portrait of Dora Maar, the mistress who succeded Marie-Thérèse.  These etching are the first in which Picasso employed the lift ground process.

An important presentation copy of Picasso and Éluard's first book together and "one of the most successful of Picasso's smaller books" (Artist & the Book).  Scarce.