Self-portrait

[c. 1930].
Graphite and blue and red coloured pencils on Navarre paper (125 x 210 mm), framed.

Large original drawing, unsigned.
The artist is depicted in bust form, his face slightly tilted and his gaze worried and fixed. He is wearing a kind of coat, with cuffed sleeves and a high collar.

We apologize for the imperfect translation generated by Deepl for the purposes of the show.

A spectacular and rare drawing by Saint-Exupéry.

Saint-Exupéry always pencilled and drew, using any medium: the margins of his drafts, letters to friends, incoming telegrams, invoices, receipts, tablecloths, leaflets, and of course in his manuscripts and the dedications to his books. Every medium offered his imagination a space where he could express, often through sketches and caricatures, living or imaginary characters. These ephemeral works are listed in the book Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Dessins, Aquarelles, pastels plumes et crayons (Gallimard, 2006); those with a particular connection to The Little Prince are also reproduced in the wonderful catalogue for the exhibition at the Musée des arts décoratifs in 2022, À la rencontre du petit prince.

In the immense gallery of drawings in a variety of known styles, there are few in which he portrays himself so precisely, and this one differs from the known portrait charges in that it contains more normative features, both in the features and in the proportions. The use of colour here only serves to reinforce the particularly intense depiction of the face.