FR EN
1 / 2
an open book with a handwritten title on it sitting on top of a tablean old book with a drawing of a machine on it
Premium Leducq Maison de Ventes aux enchères

57 - Paul ÉLUARD and Max ERNST. *Les Malheurs des immortels*.
See original version (French)

Estimate €2,500 - €3,000
Sale commission
Description
Paul ÉLUARD and Max ERNST. *Les Malheurs des immortels*. Paris, Librairie Six, 1922. Small quarto, paperback, with a blue paper slipcase. First edition, printed in a small run on imitation Japanese paper: it is illustrated with 21 full-page collages by Max Ernst. One of the most accomplished illustrated Surrealist – or proto-Surrealist? – books, in which the poems were composed by the painter and the poet in response to the collages. It appeared two years before the manifesto that was to name and launch the movement. “Les Malheurs des immortels” is the result of the closest collaboration between the two men; each text, conceived after the corresponding collage, is based on the work, by both of them, on every sentence, indeed every word. […] The poems themselves should, moreover, be regarded as verbal collages, with additions and hidden words; the loss of noun hierarchy lends a poetic quality to sentences and aphorisms that might otherwise seem merely descriptive or technical. Combining deconstruction and construction to perfection, two years before the Surrealist Manifesto, *Les Malheurs des immortels* may well be regarded as the most surrealist of all the movement’s works” (Julien Bogousslavsky). A charming signed autograph dedication, itself already surrealist in nature, countersigned by Max Ernst: To André Fontainas, / listen to the sighs of these women / with butterfly-shaped hairstyles, / Paul Éluard / Max Ernst A Belgian Symbolist poet based in Paris, André Fontainas (1865–1948) had Stéphane Mallarmé as his English teacher. He later became one of the founders of the Académie Mallarmé. (Paul Éluard and his painter friends, p. 106: “An important collection marking the closest collaboration that ever existed between the artist and the poet.” – Bogousslavsky, From Delacroix to the Surrealists, pp. 262–267.)
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
About the sale Henri Michaux, the Sven Pitsey collection
Auction location
Auction time 10/29/2026 at 2:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
You may also like