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221 - Maurice ESTÈVE (1904–2001). 13 letters, 1967–1972, to the pa…
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Estimate €600 - €800
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Description
Maurice ESTÈVE (1904–2001). 13 letters, 1967–1972, to the painter Philippe Taillardat and his wife Colette; 37 pages in quarto and octavo formats (including 3 postcards), envelopes. A long and beautiful exchange of friendly and artistic correspondence, often written in a whimsical and ironic tone. 1969. – 2 February: ‘Right. Right. That’s it. Let’s smoke the peace pipe in a spirit of euphoria and reread Unamuno (that little bouquet is interesting; thank you, I’ll return it to you when we next meet). At the Balzar, we’ll ask the waiter for your ‘Offensé drape’ and, once we’ve found it, we’ll generously present it to him so that he might remember de Frégoli – also known as Père Pipi – between serving tables of Marennes…’… – 23 April: “In the early morning mist, it seems to me that I was a little too… ironic. […] No doubt I had remained excessively silent and taciturn for some time, shut away within the walls of the Prince’s Ivory Tower […] Please forgive me, Philippe, for my enthusiasm regarding ‘Frégoli’ and my fondness for certain drawings by Millet which sometimes remind me of those by Seurat… But we can always smoke the peace pipe in front of Daumier’… – 13 September: ‘“They say” that the Légers from the Nathan Cummings collection currently on display at Galliera are very beautiful […]. ‘They say’ too that the Palaeolithic art at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye is worth the trip’… – Culan, 22 September: ‘The Berry sun, at this temperature, is consuming me. Already, the waters of Bourbon had done me the greatest harm […] This ‘Bulletin du Salon de la jeune peinture’, Philippe, what on earth have I done to you that you should invite me to read it? No matter how hard I search the aisles of my little Sorbonne library, I cannot see […] where I went wrong to deserve this dry bread… How old-fashioned! How tedious! Not a whiff of humour, alas. […] Why did the École des Beaux-Arts and the Institut, so far away on the blue-tinged ridge of the Vosges, remain the insurmountable, envied, disdainful Promised Land, standing in the way of our hopes, which were nothing but mirages?’... 25 January 1972: ‘As for your husband, whose silence is worrying (might he harbour some mysterious grievances against me? does he hold it against me that I have returned beneath the mantle of our Holy Mother the Church? Or that I stubbornly refuse to be conscripted into the army of abstraction, collective informel or individual figuration?... might he still hold it against me that I paint in the shadow of the Black flag whilst he covers canvases at Lakrylyke (sasé kri komessa?) beneath the blue, white and red anti-Dreyfusard flags?”… Etc.
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About the sale Letters and Autograph Manuscripts – Part II
Auction location
Auction time 10/14/2026 at 2:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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