The Prints of Rockwell Kent. First edition

SEBASTIAN MATTA Michel Fardoulis-Lagrange Théorbes et Bélières Bernard Dumerchez Éditeur, 1994 Copy XXIII/XXX One of thirty copies reserved for the author Signed by Matta and Fardoulis-Lagrange Original Etching DESCRIPTION Michel Fardoulis-Lagrange’s Théorbes et Bélières , illustrated with an original colour etching by Sebastian Matta and four typographical vignettes by the artist. Published by Bernard Dumerchez at Creil and registered for dépôt légal in February 1994 , some weeks before the author’s death; Le Monde published Patrick Kéchichian’s obituary of him on 29 April that year. Printed on 250 gsm white Vélin d’Arches from the Arjo-Wiggins mills, loose sheets as issued in the original printed wrapper, in its glassine jacket. This is copy XXIII/XXX , one of only thirty Roman-numeral copies specifically reserved for the author, Michel Fardoulis-Lagrange . The justification is numbered XXIII/XXX in manuscript and signed in pencil by both Michel Fardoulis-Lagrange and Sebastian Matta . The etching serves as frontispiece, facing the title , which reads: Michel Fardoulis-Lagrange Théorbes et Bélières gravure originale de Sebastian Matta Bernard Dumerchez Editeur . The copperplate was pulled by the Atelier Dupont-Visat , Paris, with letterpress typography by the Imprimerie ukrainienne. A copy of the edition is held by the Bibliothèque nationale de France in its Réserve des Livres rares (shelfmark RES G-Z-531). “Toute apparition devient le fruit des lieux inondés et l’alerte est donnée par des saisons parvenues à satiété.” — the opening sentence, p. 7 THE EDITION The colophon of the present copy sets out the edition in full: Il a été tiré de cet ouvrage cent vingt quatre exemplaires sur Vélin d’Arches blanc 250 gr. des papeteries Arjo-Wiggins illustrés d’une eau-forte originale et de quatre vignettes typographiques de Sebastian Matta, répartis comme suit : trente exemplaires numérotés de I à XXX réservés à l’auteur trente exemplaires numérotés de E.A 1 à E.A. 30 réservés à l’artiste trente neuf exemplaires numérotés de 1 à 39 réservés à l’éditeur et vingt cinq exemplaires hors commerce numérotés de HC 1 à HC 25 réservés aux collaborateurs et au dépôt légal. Tous les exemplaires sont signés par l’auteur et l’artiste, l’ensemble constituant l’édition originale de THÉORBES ET BÉLIÈRES de Michel Fardoulis-Lagrange. That is: 30 copies I–XXX for the author; 30 copies E.A. 1–30 ( épreuves d’artiste ) for the artist; 39 copies 1–39 for the publisher; and 25 copies HC 1–25 , hors commerce , for collaborators and legal deposit — 124 in all, every one signed by both hands . The edition was divided at issue into four expressly designated series. The present copy is one of the thirty Roman-numeral copies reserved for Fardoulis-Lagrange. The colophon designates the complete group as the édition originale of this bibliophile edition; the text itself had previously appeared, under the same title, in the Paris review Po&sie no. 19 (1981) — an issue that also carried Hölderlin, Rilke, Jacques Roubaud, Andrea Zanzotto and Jacques Réda — and was afterwards taken up into Les Enfants d’Édom (José Corti, 1996). MICHEL FARDOULIS-LAGRANGE Michel Fardoulis-Lagrange (Cairo 1910 — Paris 1994) was born into the Greek community of Cairo, schooled at the lycée français, and published his first stories in Greek in the reviews of Alexandria; he turned to writing in French only in 1936. Vincent Teixeira, who has devoted two university studies to him, calls him one of the most extraordinary stylists of the French language — a writer who would rewrite a single page as many as eighty times — and titles his 2004 essay, exactly, “cet inconnu majeur.” He was close to Michel Leiris and to Georges Bataille, who sheltered him at Vézelay in 1943 and whose circle he had joined the year before; imprisoned in La Santé for a year under the Occupation, he went on wri.…