Exhibition «Paul Éluard, Gérald Cramer, Joan Miró | À toute épreuve»
Exhibition, extended from 19 May to 30 August 2020
The collaborative project that brought together the poet Paul Éluard (1895–1952), the publisher Gérald Cramer (1916–1991) and the artist Joan Miró (1893–1983) for the 1958 publication of À toute épreuve produced one of the finest artist’s books of the 20th century.
Éluard wrote the collection’s poems between 1929 and 1930, when Gala, whom he had married in 1917, was growing distant and began an affair with Salvador Dalí. It was also at this time that the poet met Nusch (Maria Benz), who would become his second wife. The texts were published by Éditions surréalistes in 1930, but it was only in 1947, after a discussion with Gérald Cramer, that the project of publishing the poems as an artist’s book with illustrations by Joan Miró was born.
Much taken by the design of a 1914 edition of Stéphan Mallarmé’s poem Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard, Éluard spread his verses over some forty double pages of the initial layout. Cramer, who oversaw the evolving design of the book step by step, allowed the poet complete freedom in establishing the importance of the typography and its place on the page. Working from their instructions, Miró came up with the idea of making the publication a polychrome sculpture as much as a book. The artist discovered the woodcuts of Paul Gauguin at Cramer’s and, drawing inspiration from Japanese prints, decided to work with wood engraving. In all the artist did 233 woodcuts, which were carved, “sculpted,” and printed in color. With the poems they form a series of landscapes of words and images.
Miró’s letters to Cramer attest to the long hours that went into creating and printing off the woodcuts. The completed book was published in 1958. Just 130 copies were printed off and shown that same year for the first time at Galerie Berggruen in Paris.
Working with the Fundació Joan Miró, which devoted a show to him in 2017, the Jan Michalski Foundation for Writing and Literature will in turn tell the story of this major publication and artist’s book through correspondence, photographs, woodcuts, and the six conserved mock-ups of the book. Four copies of the original edition on display allow visitors to view all of the pages.
In collaboration with the Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona
Curatorship
Christopher Green, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona
Natalia Granero, the Jan Michalski Foundation, Montricher, Switzerland
Documents collection
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona – BGE Bibliothèque de Genève, the Gérald Cramer Archives, Geneva – Musées d’art et d’histoire, Cabinet d’arts graphiques, Geneva – the Martin Bodmer Foundation, Cologny – Stiftung Ernst Scheidegger-Archiv, Zurich – the Nicolas Ducimetière’s Collection, Geneva – Tania Grand d’Hauteville, Geneva – Patrick Cramer, Geneva
Opening hours
Tuesday to Friday, from 2pm – 6pm
Saturday and Sunday, from 11am – 6pm
Admission CHF 5.- (full price) ǀ CHF 3.- (students, groups, retirees, unemployed, persons with disabilities) ǀ Free to visitors under 18 and residents of Montricher
Free admission the first Sunday of each month.
All areas of the Jan Michalski Foundation that are open to the public are completely accessible to people with disabilities and reduced mobility.
MODALITÉS DE PROTECTION LORS DE VOTRE VISITE
- Pour accéder à la salle d’exposition, nous demandons aux visiteurs de se désinfecter les mains et de porter un masque, disponible à l’accueil.
- Afin d’assurer la traçabilité des contacts en cas de suspicion d’infection par le COVID-19, nous prions les visiteurs de l’exposition de bien vouloir nous fournir nom, adresse électronique et numéro de téléphone portable. Vos données seront conservées durant 15 jours avant d’être supprimées. Elles seront remises à la demande exclusive des autorités sanitaires cantonales ou fédérales.
Bonne visite !
Gallery
