Facile
Paris, GLM, (October 24) 1935.
1 vol. (185 x 240 mm), unpaginated. Paperback.
First edition. Illustrated with 12 photogram photographs by Man Ray, gravure.
One of the first 25 copies on Japon paper, this one out of print.
Signed: “To Edouard de Rouvre with my warmest regards. Paul Éluard.”
We apologize for the imperfect translation generated by Deepl for the purposes of the show.
A cult work of the Surrealists, Facile forme is, according to Parr and Badger, a perfect ménage à trois combining poetry, photography and typography, all celebrating love and Nusch’s body. Based on five poems and twelve photographs, Paul Éluard, Man Ray and Guy Levis Mano created a milestone in illustrated publishing, marking the reawakening of eroticism in the art of the 1930s, where, in Man Ray’s nudes, the body never appears in its entirety according to a process specific to the Man-Light. The entire head is shown only once; the eyes never. “It is because of the integration of the images with the text that this work was fundamental for modernism and a source of inspiration for generations of graphic designers” (Parr & Badger).
A fine copy, probably given to a promising young man in his twenties, Evrard de Rouvre, just after the war. The grandson of Charles Bourlon de Rouvre, who left him a considerable fortune, the young man founded Éditions Vrille in 1944, at the age of twenty-one. The first book published was his own collection of poems, Instant, of which Éluard may have been aware; next came the magazine Vrille, the first issue of which, “La peinture et la littérature libres”, was illustrated by Oscar Dominguez: it brings together texts and works by Georges Bataille, Henri Michaux, Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, which he sees parading in his antique gallery Présence des arts at 38 avenue Pierre-Ier-de-Serbie. Curious onlookers, politicians, major industrialists and collectors would flock there for years. Bibliophilia was no stranger to him: his library – dispersed in two auctions (1979 and 1980) – contains only select, even sumptuous, books with large papers and beautiful bindings. Éluard is the most represented poet. This copy of Facile is not included. Éluard made a strange mistake regarding the first name – it would not be the first nor the last – by spelling Evrard as “Edouard”. De Rouvre would go on to have a long career as a film producer, while continuing to manage numerous other companies. He died tragically in 1979, murdered by his butler.
The Facile copies on Japanese paper are extremely rare.
It does not appear that all the non-commercial copies were provided with the original solarized photograph normally attached to the Japon paper copies. Some have it; others do not, and there are also copies on vellum enriched with one of the original prints of these photographs: it is very likely that they have been passed on from copy to copy and from dedicatee to copy and copy offered.
Boulestreau, Le Photopoème “Facile”: un nouveau livre, dans les années 1930, Mélusine, pp. 163-177; Picaud, Des livres rares depuis l’invention de l’imprimerie, 1941 (Ex. n° 1 de G. Lévis Mano); Roth, The Book of 101 Books, Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century, pp. 86-87; Sinibaldi – Couturier, Regards sur un siècle de photographie à travers le livre, 48; Leclair – Née, Dictionnaire Char, Classiques Garnier, 2015, pp. 203-205.
