Les Chants De Maldoror With Original Etchings by Hans Bellmer

Published by Grafik Europa Anstalt, Switzerland, 1971. Folio. Size: 31.5cm x 41cm. Original printed black cloth cover, blocked in gilt in original printed black cloth slipcase. First edition. Text in French. Number 64 from the edition of 115, signed by the artist. One of 60 copies printed on Arches blanc. Unstitched as issued. Includes the full suite of 20 full-page, original etchings by the Surrealist, Hans Bellmer. Lautreamont’s ‘The Songs of Maldoror’ was originally published in 1869 and became one of the favourite novels of the Surrealists. The Parisian press noted that “Maldoror, for a Surrealist, is like Jesus Christ for a Christian.” Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte each made attempts to illustrate it effectively, Andre Breton was horrified by it and other Surrealists even named a nightclub after it in Montparnasse in the 1920s. Hans Bellmer, a German, who lived in Paris from the 1930s until his death, drew inspiration from this ‘dark chronicle of the wanderings and observations of a man convinced that cruelty and genius can coexist in a single personality.’ He produced a series of fine, erotic and metamorphic etchings throughout the 1960s on the subject of De Lautreamont’s classic and this work was finally published in 1971 using a selection of them. It was one of his final works and he died in 1975. Copies of this work very rarely come onto the market and in recent years when they have appeared at auction they have been incomplete. Very minor wear to the slipcase and folder. Text and etchings in fine condition. This is a very scarce, complete copy in very nice condition indeed.