Tric Trac du Ciel. Illustré de gravures sur bois par Elie Lascaux
Paris: Galerie Simon, 1923. First edition. [16] pp. Original printed wrappers. One of 100 copies (of 112 printed), signed by Artaud and the illustrator Elie Lascaux. Hint of wear to head and tail of spine, mild offsetting to endpapers, near fine or better.
Artaud's first book, a collection of surrealist poems. Published by Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, the great gallerist who also produced attractive limited editions of works by Gertrude Stein, Max Jacob, Tristan Tzara, and others, with illustrations by Leger, Picasso, Gris, Masson, and others.
Though he is better known for his contributions to the theatre, these "shreds I have managed to snatch from complete nothingness," reminiscent of Poe, Rimbaud, and Baudelaire, are nonetheless marked by the uniqueness of Artaud's vision. As John Ashbery said of him, "he was a mystic endowed with an almost Jamesian sense of precision in analyzing his turbulent states of mind." The critic Maurice Saillet said of the poems in this collection, "they breathe a disturbing sweetness, that of a spirit caught between heaven and hell, which will find only in its own ruin the meaning and completion of its perfection."
50 ans d'édition de D.-H. Kahnweiler, 14. Item #2201
Price: $5,000.00