Dessin original signé

Raymond Queneau, draughtsman and painter? In the aftermath of the war, seeking a possible new direction, the author of Zazie set down his pen for a time in favor of the brush. Between 1946 and 1952, he produced nearly six hundred gouaches and watercolors.

“As he practiced them, drawing and color became an exercise in freedom — light-hearted, dynamic, playful, exuberant. He mixed styles without aesthetic or theoretical concern, wandering through an unusual reality, often comical, sometimes melancholy. It is as though he pursued his poems through graphic form, juggling words through a vocabulary of shapes” (Dominique Charnay, Queneau et la peinture, Buchet & Chastel, 2003).

More than one hundred and fifty reproductions of his work appear in this comprehensive monograph, though this gouache is not among them. A few others also depict musicians and artists, but on different themes. Queneau’s original manuscripts and typescripts are preserved at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin.

Provenance: Jean-Marie and Annabelle Queneau; Oberlé, Catalogue Queneau.