TZARA Tristan L’Antitête.

Cramer 21, Bloch 249 (livres 21).

First edition of Tristan Tzara’s first illustrated book by Picasso.

One of only 18 large paper copies printed on Japon nacré, including 3 hors commerce. Only the first copies contain the original engraving by Picasso. An unnumbered copy, signed on colophon by both the poet and the artist.

The proofs of Picasso’s original etching, Les Trois grâces ou trois baigneuses, were all printed in monotype by the artist himself and each print represents variations in inking. The present print, lightly inked, is similar to the one held in the collection of MomA in New York.

L’Antitête brings together for the first time three anthologies previously published between 1916 and 1933.

“By reading L’Antitête, which brings together, in book form, three anthologies written between 1916 and 1932, one can follow the development of Tzara. “Monsieur AA l’Antiphilosophe” consists of texts written in the Dadaist manner. Tzara has dropped the consonants of “Dada” and now one finds M. AA attacking not only the metaphysical systems intending to explain everything from A to Z. but also language itself, which he willfully takes apart in order to put together again, with proverbs and bits of magazine articles added here and there as if he were making collages. The second part of L’Antitéte, “Minuits pour géants“, makes the transition between Dadaist destruction and the free inspiration of Surrealism. In the third part, Tzara proposes a new language, “Le Désespéranto“, which would be capable of expressing the automatism of thought which reveals the subconscious in all its forms; now anxiety, even despair, characterize the collective images of the unconscious” (Cramer).

Fine copy, entirely uncut and well preserved, of this book rarely found on the market.