PICABIA Francis (1879-1953)

Lot 182
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Estimation :
8000 - 10000 EUR
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Result : 9 360EUR
PICABIA Francis (1879-1953)
MANUSCRIPT autograph signed "Francis Picabia", Marie et Joseph. Compréhension de l'illusion, March 31, 1950; cahier petit in-4 22 x 17.2 cm) of 34 leaves, 38 pages, brick-red cover, metal spiral binding. Working manuscript of the final version of an unpublished tale. Composed in 1950, this humorous, profane and blasphemous tale is related to the 1920s Rastaquouère Jesus Christ. Marie goes out with Joseph, whose portrait she keeps; she is questioned and courted by the narrator and Pierre de Lillusion, who openly flirt with her, in the presence of Joseph . The second chapter takes us to the Paris Fair, where Joseph wanders, when a naked woman appears: it is Marie, who earns her living singing in nightclubs; she would like to sleep with Joseph. Joseph and Peter will then initiate Mary to the art of lying and to the understanding of illusion, because the truth does not exist? Written in blue ink on the front (and 4 verses) of a notebook of paper with small squares, this manuscript is dated and signed at the end: "Finished in Paris on March 31, 1950 / Francis Picabia"; it presents erasures and corrections. Chapter I. The will of life and its complications. "Mary came to sit under the portrait of Joseph, with great majesty and grandeur. / Mary, you seem young to me, do you allow me to ask you a few questions? / Do you have ideals? / Are you concerned about men? / Mary is at the wrong age, at the age when girls become sad". Chapter II. Joseph or the Origin of the Illogical. "Joseph had gone to the Paris Fair, on the side of the alley going down to the stand of the silent apartments, he suddenly saw a door opening carefully; a woman came out slowly, this effort had exhausted her. She was absolutely naked" . Chapter III. Reverences of an evening. "The opposition of the real and the ideal is irreconcilable, one cannot become the other, if the ideal became real, it would no longer be ideal. / Joseph and Peter began to think of Mary, finding her beautiful! for now they approve of the arts of the untrue, at last the understanding of illusion and perhaps of error as a condition of the intellectual world, for at last art is the good will of illusion. And this, it seems, not for the poor fools"... The end has been reworked, with an important addition: "Life is nothing more than intellectual irritability which almost equals genius and certainly the mother of all genius. / But that was yesterday, today beings tend with effort to appear deep and thoughtful; the finest among them only simulate a kind of effrontery. /Men want to be indifferent to me; let them be able to, that's the main thing; Joseph and Mary have not yet found, for to find everything deep - that's an awkward quality".
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