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several old black and white photographs of people and animals
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134 - [Henri MICHAUX]. Jorge de LIMA.
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Estimate €1,000 - €1,500
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Description
[Henri MICHAUX]. Jorge de LIMA. Photographs of collages. 25 August 1939. 15 black-and-white or sepia photographs (ranging from 14.5 x 12 cm to 11 x 17 cm). In an envelope bearing a few handwritten notes and small sketches in pencil. A remarkable set of 15 photographs of collages by Jorge de Lima, brought back from Brazil by Henri Michaux; five of them are dated on the reverse in his own hand as 25 August 1939. In the spirit – and under the influence – of Max Ernst, the photomontages and collages combine figures from women’s fashion, engravings, elements of ancient sculpture and urban scenes. A Brazilian surrealist writer and poet, Jorge de Lima (1893–1953) was a pioneer of photomontage in his country. Thus, 41 of his photomontages, created between 1930 and 1940, were compiled into an album published in 1943 under the title *A Pintura em Panico*, the first book of its kind to appear in Brazil. (A handful of the collages pictured here were selected for inclusion in the volume.) The book was published with a lengthy quotation from Michaux, who had met Lima in Rio de Janeiro. He also wrote to Paulhan to recommend the man he regarded as “the best Brazilian poet, alongside Murelo Mendès” and to send him some poems – which Paulhan published in the NRF. “Jorge de Lima (a doctor by profession, one of the few intellectuals in his country of almost purely Indigenous descent) was a friend of Bernanos’s. In two respects, since, as a writer, he had welcomed him to Rio and, as a surgeon, he had treated his son Yves. […] Jorge de Lima is ‘a very likeable and friendly man’, HM would later write in a letter from the war, ‘a friend of Bernanos’s and, to some extent, mine too’” (Jean-Pierre Martin, pp. 323–324). The envelope in which the images are preserved bears notes in pencil in Michaux’s own hand. Five of these images therefore bear the date ‘25.8.1939’ on the reverse, in Michaux’s hand. The collection comes from the archives of Jacques-Olivier Fourcade, to whom Henri Michaux had entrusted it; they may have been considering a publication. These photographs were enclosed with the photographs and drawings of trees described under the following number.
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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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