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30-607: Along with his role as leader of the surrealist movement he is the author of celebrated books such as Nadja and L'Amour fou . Those activities, combined with his critical and theoretical work on writing and the plastic arts, made André Breton a major figure in twentieth-century French art and literature. André Breton was the only son born to a family of modest means in Tinchebray ( Orne ) in Normandy , France. His father, Louis-Justin Breton,

60-734: A financial crisis he experienced in 1931, most of his collection (along with that of his friend Paul Éluard) was auctioned. He subsequently rebuilt the collection in his studio and home at 42 rue Fontaine. The collection grew to over 5,300 items: modern paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, books, art catalogs, journals, manuscripts, and works of popular and Oceanic art. French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss endorsed Breton's skill in authentication based on their time together in 1940s New York. After Breton's death on 28 September 1966, his third wife, Elisa, and his daughter, Aube, allowed students and researchers access to his archive and collection. After thirty-six years, when attempts to establish

90-539: A conference at the National Autonomous University of Mexico about surrealism, Breton stated after getting lost in Mexico City (as no one was waiting for him at the airport) "I don't know why I came here. Mexico is the most surrealist country in the world." However, visiting Mexico provided the opportunity to meet Leon Trotsky . Breton and other surrealists traveled via a long boat ride from Patzcuaro to

120-461: A general strike: Lescot was toppled a few days later. Among the figures associated with both La Ruche and the instigation of the revolt were the painter and photographer Gérald Bloncourt and the writers René Depestre and Jacques Stephen Alexis . In subsequent interviews Breton downplayed his personal role in the unrest, stressing that "the misery, and thus, the patience of the Haitian people, were at

150-506: A groundbreaking surrealist exhibition at Yale University . In 1942, Breton collaborated with artist Wifredo Lam on the publication of Breton's poem "Fata Morgana", which was illustrated by Lam. Breton got to know Martinican writers Suzanne Césaire and Aimé Césaire , and later composed the introduction to the 1947 edition of Aimé Césaire's Cahier d'un retour au pays natal . During his exile in New York City he met Elisa Bindhoff ,

180-509: A particular chord with the audience, namely surrealism's faith in youth, Haiti's revolutionary heritage, and a quote from Jacques Roumain extolling the revolutionary potential of the Haitian masses. Breton returned to Paris in 1946, where he opposed French colonialism (for example as a signatory of the Manifesto of the 121 against the Algerian War ) and continued, until his death, to foster

210-491: A second group of surrealists in the form of expositions or reviews ( La Brèche , 1961–65). In 1959, he organized an exhibit in Paris. By the end of World War II, André Breton decided to embrace anarchism explicitly. In 1952, Breton wrote "It was in the black mirror of anarchism that surrealism first recognised itself." Breton consistently supported the francophone Anarchist Federation and he continued to offer his solidarity after

240-601: A surrealist foundation to protect the collection were opposed, the collection was auctioned by Calmels Cohen at Drouot-Richelieu. A wall of the apartment is preserved at the Centre Georges Pompidou . Nine previously partly unpublished manuscripts, including the Manifeste du surréalisme , were auctioned by Sotheby's in May 2008. Breton married three times: Nadja (novel) Too Many Requests If you report this error to

270-612: A volume entitled Lettres de guerre (1919), for which Breton wrote four introductory essays. Breton married his first wife, Simone Kahn, on 15 September 1921. The couple relocated to rue Fontaine No. 42 in Paris on 1 January 1922. The apartment on rue Fontaine (in the Pigalle district) became home to Breton's collection of more than 5,300 items: modern paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, books, art catalogs, journals, manuscripts, and works of popular and Oceanic art. Like his father, he

300-629: The Bureau of Surrealist Research . A group of writers became associated with him: Soupault, Louis Aragon , Paul Éluard , René Crevel , Michel Leiris , Benjamin Péret , Antonin Artaud , and Robert Desnos . Eager to combine the themes of personal transformation found in the works of Arthur Rimbaud with the politics of Karl Marx , Breton and others joined the French Communist Party in 1927, from which he

330-659: The Chilean woman who would become his third wife. In 1944, he and Elisa traveled to the Gaspé Peninsula in Québec , where he wrote Arcane 17 , a book which expresses his fears of World War II, describes the marvels of the Percé Rock and the extreme northeastern part of North America, and celebrates his new romance with Elisa. During his visit to Haiti in 1945–46, he sought to connect surrealist politics and automatist practices with

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360-500: The Manifesto had a second edition, where Breton added in a note: "While I say that this act is the simplest, it is clear that my intention is not to recommend it to all merely by virtue of its simplicity; to quarrel with me on this subject is much like a bourgeois asking any non-conformist why he does not commit suicide, or asking a revolutionary why he hasn't moved to the USSR". In 1935, there

390-730: The Platformists around founder and Secretary General Georges Fontenis transformed the FA into the Fédération communiste libertaire (FCL). Like a small number of intellectuals during the time of the Algerian War, he continued to support the FCL when it was forced to go underground, even providing shelter to Fontenis, who was in hiding. He refused to take sides in the politically divided French anarchist movement, even though both he and Péret expressed solidarity to

420-532: The Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.151 via cp1112 cp1112, Varnish XID 393510933 Upstream caches: cp1112 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Fri, 29 Nov 2024 05:40:05 GMT Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes (June 19, 1884 – July 9, 1974) was a French writer and artist associated with the Dada movement. He

450-450: The artist's international status from the late 1940s on, but the surrealist readily admitted that his understanding of Hyppolite's art was inhibited by their lack of a common language. Returning to France with multiple paintings by Hyppolite, Breton integrated this artwork into the increased surrealist focus on the occult, myth, and magic. Breton's sojourn in Haiti coincided with the overthrow of

480-492: The breaking point" at the time and stating that "it would be absurd to say that I alone incited the fall of the government". Michael Löwy has argued that the lectures that Breton gave during his time in Haiti resonated with the youth associated with La Ruche and the student movement, resulting in them "plac(ing) them as a banner on their journal" and "t(aking) hold of them as they would a weapon". Löwy has identified three themes in Breton's talks which he believes would have struck

510-459: The country's president, Élie Lescot , by a radical protest movement. Breton's visit was warmly received by La Ruche , a youth journal of revolutionary art and politics, which in January 1946 published a talk given by Breton alongside a commentary which Breton described as having "an insurrectional tone". The issue concerned was suppressed by the government, sparking a student strike, and two days later,

540-580: The legacies of the Haitian Revolution and the ritual practices of Vodou possession. Recent developments in Haitian painting were central to his efforts, as can be seen from a comment that Breton left in the visitors' book at the Centre d'Art in Port-au-Prince : "Haitian painting will drink the blood of the phoenix. And, with the epaulets of [Jean-Jacques] Dessalines , it will ventilate the world." Breton

570-412: The movement. It marked a divide amidst the early surrealists. Georges Limbour and Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes commented on the sentence where shooting at random in the crowd is described as the simplest surrealist act. Limbour saw in it an example of buffoonery and shamelessness and Ribemont-Dessaignes called Breton a hypocrite, a cop and a priest. After the publication of this pamphlet against Breton,

600-551: The new Anarchist Federation rebuilt by a group of synthesist anarchists . He also worked with the FA in the Anti-Fascist Committees in the 1960s. André Breton died at the age of 70 in 1966, and was buried in the Cimetière des Batignolles in Paris. Breton was an avid collector of art, ethnographic material, and unusual trinkets. He was particularly interested in materials from the northwest coast of North America. During

630-504: The street and shooting at random, as much as possible, into the crowd". In reaction to the Second manifesto , writers and artists published in 1930 a collective collection of pamphlets against Breton, entitled (in allusion to an earlier title by Breton) Un Cadavre . The authors were members of the surrealist movement who were insulted by Breton or had otherwise opposed his leadership. The pamphlet criticized Breton's oversight and influence over

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660-526: The street, which resulted in surrealists being expelled from the Congress. René Crevel, who according to Salvador Dalí was "the only serious communist among surrealists", was isolated from Breton and other surrealists, who were unhappy with Crevel because of his bisexuality and annoyed with communists in general. In 1938, Breton accepted a cultural commission from the French government to travel to Mexico . After

690-412: The town of Erongarícuaro . Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo were among the visitors to the hidden community of intellectuals and artists. Together, Breton and Trotsky wrote the Manifesto for an Independent Revolutionary Art (published under the names of Breton and Diego Rivera) calling for "complete freedom of art", which was becoming increasingly difficult with the world situation of the time. Breton

720-657: Was a conflict between Breton and the Soviet writer and journalist Ilya Ehrenburg during the first International Congress of Writers for the Defense of Culture, which opened in Paris in June. Breton had been insulted by Ehrenburg — along with all fellow surrealists — in a pamphlet which said, among other things, that surrealists shunned work, favouring parasitism , and that they endorsed " onanism , pederasty , fetishism , exhibitionism , and even sodomy ". Breton slapped Ehrenburg several times on

750-714: Was a policeman and atheist , and his mother, Marguerite-Marie-Eugénie Le Gouguès, was a former seamstress. Breton attended medical school, where he developed a particular interest in mental illness . His education was interrupted when he was conscripted for World War I . During World War I , he worked in a neurological ward in Nantes , where he met the Alfred Jarry devotee Jacques Vaché , whose anti-social attitude and disdain for established artistic tradition influenced Breton considerably. Vaché committed suicide when aged 23, and his war-time letters to Breton and others were published in

780-641: Was again in the medical corps of the French Army at the start of World War II . The Vichy government banned his writings as "the very negation of the national revolution " and Breton escaped, with the help of the American Varian Fry and Hiram "Harry" Bingham IV , to the United States and the Caribbean during 1941. He emigrated to New York City and lived there for a few years. In 1942, Breton organized

810-435: Was an atheist. Breton launched the review Littérature in 1919, with Louis Aragon and Philippe Soupault . He also associated with Dadaist Tristan Tzara . In Les Champs Magnétiques ( The Magnetic Fields ), a collaboration with Soupault, he implemented the principle of automatic writing . With the publication of his Surrealist Manifesto in 1924 came the founding of the magazine La Révolution surréaliste and

840-1092: Was born in Montpellier and died in Saint-Jeannet . In addition to numerous early paintings, Ribemont-Dessaignes wrote plays, poetry, manifestos and opera librettos. He contributed to the Dada (and later surrealist ) periodical Literature . Among Ribemont-Dessaignes' works for the theater are the plays The Emperor of China (1916) and The Mute Canary (1919), and the opera libretti The Knife's Tears (1926) and The Three Wishes (1926), both with music by Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů . His novels include L'Autruche aux yeux clos (1924), Ariane (1925), Le Bar du lendemain (1927), Céleste Ugolin (1928), and Monsieur Jean ou l'Amour absolu (1934). Dada Performance . Edited by Mel Gordon. PAJ Publications; New York, 1987. Les Larmes du couteau . CD recording of Martinu's opera. Commentary by Ales Brezina. Supraphon, 1999. The French Literature Companion . This article about

870-527: Was expelled in 1933. Nadja , a novel about his imaginative encounter with a woman who later becomes mentally ill, was published in 1928. Due to the economic depression , he had to sell his art collection and rebuilt it later. In December 1929, Breton published the Second manifeste du surréalisme ( Second manifesto of surrealism ), which contained an oft-quoted declaration for which many, including Albert Camus , reproached Breton: "The simplest surrealist act consists, with revolvers in hand, of descending into

900-407: Was specifically referring to the work of painter and Vodou priest Hector Hyppolite , whom he identified as the first artist to directly depict Vodou scenes and the lwa (Vodou deities), as opposed to hiding them in chromolithographs of Catholic saints or invoking them through impermanent vevé (abstracted forms drawn with powder during rituals). Breton's writings on Hyppolite were undeniably central to

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