Almanach illustré du Père Ubu (XXe siècle)
Illustrated with 83 lithographs printed in bistre, blue and black (for the cover) by Pierre Bonnard.
One of the first 25 copies on Imperial Japan paper, with a special cover and the suite in black of the 83 lithographs. They are the only copies accompanied by a suite in black of the illustrations, before letters, also printed on Imperial Japan paper. This is the only deluxe paper ahead of the 25 copies on Hollande van Gelder, which were issued without the suite.
Conceived as a genuine almanac, the book opens with the calendar for the new year, entirely reinvented by Jarry: the feast days and names of saints are diverted according to Père Ubu’s fancies. Printed on 1 January 1901, it ranks among the very first books of the twentieth century, if not the first.
This “great almanac,” so nicknamed to distinguish it from the earlier one published at the end of 1898, marks a singular moment in the Ubu saga. For the first time, one of Jarry’s creations took the form of a deluxe illustrated book, through the meeting of three figures: the poet, the painter Pierre Bonnard, and the dealer Ambroise Vollard.
The project took shape in the basement of Vollard’s gallery, as he was then beginning to develop his activity as a publisher of illustrated books, intended to bring literature together with the research of contemporary artists. The previous year he had published Verlaine’s Parallèlement, sumptuously illustrated by Bonnard, whose sensual lithographs had made that volume one of the landmarks of the modern illustrated book.
For the Almanach, Bonnard produced an abundant and freely inventive illustration, printed in bistre, blue and black, which accompanies and extends Jarry’s burlesque universe. His figures, silhouettes and comic scenes fully participate in the invention of a world ruled entirely by the absurd, satire and fantasy. The text itself is a collective work: Fagus contributed to it, as did Claude Terrasse, composer notably of the music for Tatane and the Chanson pour faire rougir les nègres et glorifier le Père Ubu.
Vollard, who recounted the story of this publication in his Souvenirs d’un marchand de tableaux, did not dare to put his own name on the title page. He contented himself with placing, at the end of the volume, advertisements for his own publications, ahead of those for Jarry’s books published by Mercure de France and the Revue blanche.
The hoped-for commercial success never came. The print run, which probably did not exceed a thousand copies, remained largely unsold. On 12 February 1902, Jarry wrote playfully to Claude Terrasse: “Le palotin Sylvain Lévi, professeur au Collège de France, s’est adressé à moi pour se procurer l’almanach: je lui en ai fait parvenir un en pur don, et ainsi n’en ai plus que sept cent quatre-vingt-dix-neuf… et quelques.” (Œuvres complètes, I, p. 1077.)
A copy in perfect condition, exactly as issued.
Terrasse, Pierre Bonnard Illustrator, New York, 1988, no. 10; Keller, Sammlung Vollard, Winterthur Kunstmuseum, 1949, no. 9; Johnson, Ambroise Vollard, éditeur, Museum of Modern Art, 1977, no. 167; Ives et al., Pierre Bonnard: The Graphic Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1990, p. 162, fig. 220–221; Expojarrysition, no. 289.