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FIRST EDITION: A REMARKABLE ASSOCIATION COPY. INSCRIBED BY DUCHAMP TO HIS GOOD FRIEND AND ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF SURREALISM, PAUL ÉLUARD. Inscribed in ink on the half-title: "Cher Eluard / Marcel Duchamp" Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) used his female alter ego Rrose Sélavy as the "author" for many of his most audacious works, including this collection of aphorisms. As an artist, Duchamp is associated with Dadaism, Cubism, and Surrealism though he resisted group affiliations. Instead, he focused on art that served the mind rather than art that pleased the eye. Dividing his time between New York and Europe, he was also an accomplished chess player, a prankster, and a writer. He especially enjoyed experimenting with verbal punning, which he viewed as a source of inspiration and humor. In addition to working with his contemporaries in the Dada and Surrealism circles, Duchamp had a seminal influence on younger Pop artists like Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns. Duchamp's Rrose Sélavy was an artist, muse, and creative experiment that brought to life his symbolic use of language. Images of Sélavy - Duchamp dressed as a woman - first emerged in 1921 in a series of photographs taken by fashion photographer and artist Man Ray. Her name, as pronounced in French, sounds like "Eros, c'est la vie", meaning "The passion of love [sex], such is life". This describes Duchamp's vision of life: the joy to live and roam free in thought. Rrose Sélavy inspired everything from collections of surrealist poetry to a 1921 sculpture called Why Not Sneeze, Rrose Sélavy? Sélavy gave Duchamp an opportunity to show off his fondness for wordplay and his interest in androgyny and gender fluidity; Duchamp was, after all, the artist who drew a mustache and beard on a postcard of the Mona Lisa. In 1939, his collection of aphorisms entitled, Rrose Sélavy: Oculisme de precision, poils et coups de pieds en tous genres [Rose Sélavy: Precision oculism, complete line of whiskers and kicks] was published by Guy Lévis-Mano, renowned for printing works by prestigious artists such as Paul Éluard and Man Ray. This copy we have on offer is inscribed "Cher Éluard. Marcel Duchamp." Duchamp personally dedicated it to his close friend Paul Éluard, a French poet and one of the founders of the Surrealist movement. Though Duchamp wrote "word plays" as early as 1922, this collection was the first time his puns were published in one place. In this anthology of anagrams, double-entendres, and spoonerisms, he played with words that often had nothing to do with each other such as "My niece is cold because my knees are cold" and "abominable abdominal fur." Duchamp believed that "if you introduce a familiar word into an alien atmosphere, you have something comparable to distortion in painting, something surprising and new." ("Marcel Duchamp interview with Katharine Kuh") On the relationship between Paul Éluard and Duchamp: Duchamp and Éluard were part of an intimate group of artists that included Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, Salvador Dalí and Max Ernst. The mutual admiration and close ties between Éluard and Duchamp were evident throughout the 1930s. In 1936 Éluard presented Duchamp with a collection of his poems which was inscribed "a Marcel Duchamp, votre ami Paul Éluard" ["to Marcel Duchamp, your friend Paul Éluard"]. He also wrote "Rosse-est-la-vie" under his inscription, likely an allusion to Rrose Sélavy. In 1938, the year before Duchamp presented Éluard with this signed collection of aphorisms, they collaborated on the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme [International Surrealist Exhibition] in Paris. Curators André Breton and Paul Éluard recruited Marcel Duchamp to serve as generator (art director) and mediator-Breton and Éluard were often at odds with each other. Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst and Man Ray also contributed to this major cultural event which pioneered the innovative concept of an immersive art show and proved to be the key Surrealism exposition during the interwar period. The Ex. Seller Inventory # 2723
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