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the book is brown with black lettering on the coveran image of a wooden sign with writing on ita black and white poster with an image of a dog on it
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158 - Henri MICHAUX. *Poésie pour pouvoir*.
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Estimate €6,000 - €7,000
Sale commission
Description
Henri MICHAUX. *Poésie pour pouvoir*. Text and frontispiece by Henri Michaux. Linocut layout by Michel Tapié. Paris, René Drouin, 1949. Folio, in sheets, illustrated cover, housed in a wooden portfolio with hinged panels, front cover illustrated and featuring 32 steel nails, slipcase with title in openwork lettering on an aubergine-coloured shagreen band, case (publisher’s slipcase). First edition. Limited edition of 46 copies: one of the 30 printed on Arches paper (no. VI), signed by Henri Michaux and Michel Tapié. Frontispiece by Henri Michaux, printed in offset, and 21 pages linocut by Michel Tapié, including the title page, containing the text and illustrations. Part of the linocut on the title page is reproduced on the cover and on the publisher’s wooden portfolio. “Poésie pour pouvoir, although the three poems gathered here […] predate Marie-Louise’s death, is linked to this process of mourning through writing, constantly interrupted and resumed. […] This small, large-format volume (an extremely limited edition, printed in February 1949 in a run of thirty-one copies by Éditions René Drouin) was itself a book-object, but above all a magical book, a talisman or amulet. […] Was the idea for the wooden cover, with thirty-two nail heads hammered into it (which may have inspired the strange title of a forthcoming collection, *Face aux verrous*), Henri Michaux’s or Tapié’s? In short, it was a matter of infusing the book with a power that shone through in his paintings. May this book, too, become a wound!” (Jean-Pierre Martin, p. 459). A few small pinholes due to the nature of the paper, as is often the case. Minor chips on the spine of the slipcase. (Imbert, no. 152.— Michaux, Œuvres complètes II, Pléiade, p. 1229: “*Poésie pour pouvoir* gave rise not only to a unique editorial experiment in visual interpretation, but also to a musical composition that has become the most famous of all those inspired by Michaux’s texts, owing to the renown of Pierre Boulez.”)
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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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