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an open book with the title of a poem written by robert ganoan open book with a drawing of a fish on itan open book with a picture of a green leaf on it
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91 - Robert GANZO. Orinoco. Illustrated with eleven colour etchin…
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Estimate €1,000 - €1,200
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Description
Robert GANZO. Orinoco. Illustrated with eleven colour etchings by Jean Fautrier. Paris, Librairie Auguste Blaizot, 1942. Folio, loose-leaf, hardback. First edition. Printed in a run of 84 copies: one of the 50 on Auvergne paper (no. 47). Although printed during the Occupation, the book was not actually sold until after the Liberation: hence the enclosed leaflet announcing the book’s publication on 15 October 1945. The illustrations comprise 11 original colour etchings by Jean Fautrier. The cover is also illustrated with an original etching. A recent reinterpretation of Fautrier’s illustrations, engraved and published in 1942, attributes a protest-oriented character to these abstract works: “Jean Fautrier’s eleven abstract etchings of the decapitated body and severed head, disguised as the flowing waters of a river in the artist’s book *Orénoque*, are landmark symbols of protest against the wartime atrocities in France. Commissioned by the French publisher Georges Blaizot during the German Occupation, Fautrier’s etchings transformed Robert Ganzo’s nostalgic poems about the rivers and forests of his Venezuelan childhood into an instrument of cultural resistance. Using the book as a vehicle and Ganzo’s poems as camouflage, Fautrier circumvented the barriers of fear and censorship imposed by the Occupation. The text and images coexisted independently within the same book, each telling a different story, in a reinterpretation of the modernist and ‘degenerate art’ that had been condemned” (Swan, ‘Orénoque as a Book of Cultural Protest: Fautrier’s Brutal Etchings Camouflaged by Ganzo’s Poetic River’).
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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
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