[CZECH SURREALISM] Bulletin international du surréalisme. Mezinárodní buletin surrealismu [International bulletin of surrealism].

Prague: Skupina surrealistů v ČSR, April 9, 1935. Quarto (29.7 × 21 cm). Original printed self-wrappers; 12 pp. With reproductions of works by Makovský, Štyrský, and Toyen. Some light browning, minor chipping along bottom edge of first few pages and foreedge of first leaf; small loss to lower right corner of final leaf; overall about very good. Item #54897

The first issue of a series of altogether four international Surrealist bulletins (Bulletin international du surréalisme). No. 2 was issued by El grupo surrealista de Paris and Gaceta de arte, Tenerife, Canary Islands; no. 3 was issued by Le groupe surréaliste en Belgique; and no. 4 was issued by The Surrealist Group in England. This initial issue was prepared by the short-lived literary and artistic Surrealist group in Czechoslovakia, Skupina surrealistů v ČSR. Founded in 1934, the group was heavily influenced by André Breton's 1924 Second Manifesto of Surrealism. Breton was invited by the group to lecture in Prague, and this bulletin contains, in parallel columns of Czech and French text, extensive quotes from Breton and Paul Éluard on the occasion of their visit. The illustrations reproduce works by Jindřich Štyrský, Toyen, and Makovský.

"The formation of the Group of Surrealists in Czechoslovakia (Skupina Surrealistů v Československu), to give the Prague surrealists their official title, was announced on 21 March 1934 in the manifesto “Surrealism in the Czechoslovak Republic” (Surrealismus v ČSR). It was the first such surrealist group to be established outside France. The core members were Nezval, Honzl, Štyrský, Toyen, Makovský, the poet Konstantin Biebl, the Liberated Theater composer Jaroslav Ježek, and the psycho-analytic theorist Bohuslav Brouk.7 Karel Teige – Devětsil’s leading spokesman and the most influential figure of the interwar Czech avant-garde – joined them a few weeks later, having in the meantime mended fences with Jindřich Štyrský, with whom he had fallen out in 1930" (Derek Sayer, André Breton and the Magic Capital, p. 56). In 1938, Vítězslav Nezval disbanded the group, in part as a reaction against the anti-Soviet views of many of its members.

Price: €950.00

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