PICABIA FRANCIS (1879-1953).

Lot 193
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4000 - 5000 EUR
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Result : 5 200EUR
PICABIA FRANCIS (1879-1953).
MANUSCRIT autograph, Anus Ennazus, August 7, 1946; small notebook in-4 (22 x 17.5 cm) of 25 leaves, in red hardcover with autograph title. First version of the poem Ennazus. Written in black ink on the front pages of a small-square notebook, this manuscript is signed and dated at the end: "Francis Picabia / Rubingen 7 August 1946". Picabia composed this long-unpublished collection of poems during a holiday in Rubingen, Switzerland, with his wife Olga's family; these texts reflect Picabia's tumultuous love affair with his mistress Suzanne Romain (Ennazus is the reversal of Suzanne) [on this affair, see Carole Boulbès, Picabia with Nietzsche. Lettres d'amour à Suzanne Romain (1944-1948), Les Presses du réel, 2010]. Picabia drew up an incorrect typed version, entitled Ennazus, addressed in November 1946 to Christine Boumeester, which was published as an appendix to Lettres à Christine (Gérard Lebovici, 1988, pp. 201-246), before being collected in Écrits critiques (Mémoire du Livre, 2005, pp. 625-671). This manuscript gives an earlier version, with important variants. [1] Title: "francispicabia/- / anus/ ennazus/ - / preface/ of the/ poetignore/ = / poems". [2-3] Preface, signed at the end: "Le poëte ignoré", in a different version from the published text: "Francis Picabia has always remained himself in the midst of writers and painters - Everything that touches his heart, his independence clashes, since his childhood with men, he is in conflict in struggle with the world - His adversaries do not disarm; each of them spying on his weaknesses. And yet it is his path for years that leads us to emancipation"... Let us quote again the conclusion: "The problem that arises now is this: supposing that Francis Picabia did not cause the slightest harm to anyone, I should nevertheless deploy all my zeal to fight him / Because I am full of absurd morality, and I must oppose everything that can hurt it". [4-24] Untitled poetic prose, interrupted seven times by a refrain of five lines: "At the bottom of the garden, an open gate, traces of butterflies without leaving any trace rise towards the sky". This prose corresponds, with important variants, to the poem Derniers jours and to the first half of Adieu (Écrits critiques, p. 629-662); the text will then be cut up and presented in free verse. Let us quote the beginning (with some spelling mistakes): "You, who have plunged your eyes to the bottom of my heart, will be able to say how your so great love, which was, our truth, became useless to you. That sacrifice of the lover when she abandons father and mother, braves all and endures all, the hardest privations to reach her goal, have become foreign to you, and that because all your efforts were only for you. Your passions, until the day you met me, were petty, miserable, one-sided / She who lives for a great love, for a sublime mission, must not allow herself to be touched by any mediocrity, she must divest herself of all material interests"... The text ends with the following: "Unless one can imagine that the subject of one's love is only a dream, an illusion. We are allowed to judge, but we must judge with love, because it is the basis of our thoughts and our ideal. / [Refrain, with the final verse modified:] descend towards the sky: / to see the magic circle of the one who has understood that there is never beginning nor end. The signature and date follow. [25] Two aphorisms end the notebook. "I am a bad boy as is the rule and law of all Christian doctrine in the history of the world. It is I who now embody the divinity of the unsalted man / -/ The best singer in the world has no mouth: this is the most modern thing I have to present to you." PROVENANCE Francis Picabia. A collection (Ader, 13 December 2012, No. 65).
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