Le Cahier d’une Écolière (Schoolgirl’s Notebook)
[Paris, Georges Visat, 1973]. First edition. [3], blank; [2], [3], blank. Sewn wrappers, covered with blue paper. Original lithograph with embossing, number 28 of 100 copies, signed by Oppenheim. Spine and extremities of fugitive blue covers sunned, interior fine.
“In 1930, when she was 16 years old, Meret Oppenheim created a collage in her mathematics exercise book for her father’s birthday. She did not like school, and her first Surrealist work was the absurd equation x = hare (or rather an image of an orangey-red hare or rabbit) was intended to convince her father that she was ill-suited for conventional education and should be allowed to become an artist and go to Paris. Her strategy worked, and in 1932 Oppenheim went to Paris, with her friend Irène Zurkinden, to study art. In 1957, André Breton, leader of the Surrealist movement, published Oppenheim’s Schoolgirl’s Notebook in the magazine Le Surrealisme même. After Breton died, his wife Elisa returned the notebook to Oppenheim. It was published in 1973 in a limited edition of 100 copies.” (National Museum of Women in the Arts). Item #2266
Price: $4,500.00