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167 - Henri MICHAUX. Their Secrets on Display.
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Estimate €1,500 - €2,000
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Description
Henri MICHAUX. Their Secrets on Display. No place or date [1955–1956?]. Signed typescript, 15 pages, in-4. Signed typescript, with handwritten corrections and deletions. A literary and metaphorical account of a pictorial art born of mental alienation, or Michaux’s fascination with the state of insanity. Through a blend of ostensibly objective descriptions and poetic commentary, Michaux engages with fifteen paintings created by institutionalised schizophrenics, each resembling an apocalyptic vision. A bitch gives birth to a human child, whom two midwives, summoned in haste, pull from beneath her tail. The newborn, immediately, head held high—there is no doubt that he will soon begin to speak, to give orders—a man to whom the keys to the house, the keys to the world, the keys to his life must be handed over. Meanwhile, a large, bloodstained parasol opens up in the sky and lets drops fall, which a few devotees, with angelic expressions, gather in chalices. But the angel within them is completely false, false and foolish, a menthol angel. Seven birds are in the air, flying upside down, terribly low and with stiff legs […]. The final page, signed, suggests a possible subtitle: “written on the basis of a few drawings of singular men mired in their problems”; a subtitle that would be changed to “paintings by the insane” when this text was first published in *Lettres Nouvelles* in December 1956. These fifteen “secrets” were included in the collection *Vents et Poussières*, edited by Karl Flinker in 1962, and subsequently in *Les Ravagés* in 1976. (Imbert, no. 197.)
See original version (French)
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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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