.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Wanda de Guébriant has confirmed the authenticity of this drawing.
Louis Aragon (1897-1982), a poet and novelist, was a founding member of the Dada and Surrealist movements in France. He pioneered the technique of automatic writing. During the 1930s Aragon actively sympathized with the political and social goals of the Soviet Russian regime and wrote 'agitprop' verse. Criticized by André Breton for doing so, Aragon left the Surrealist inner circle, but continued to practice its tenets in his work. He served as a soldier in the French army in 1940, and after the defeat of France was active in the resistance.
Aragon and his partner Elsa Tricolet (sister-in-law of the great Soviet poet Mayakovsky) first met Matisse in Nice in late 1941, while the painter was recovering from intestinal surgery. Matisse had already embarked upon his celebrated series of drawings Thèmes et variations. In March 1942 Aragon agreed to write the introduction for the publication by Martin Fabiani of the complete series, which took place the following year. In his text Aragon drew heavily on statements by the artist about the process of drawing, and as a Surrealist he saw similarities with Matisse's spontaneous, fluent manner of line drawing. During these meetings Matisse drew a series of portraits of Aragon, following the sequential process the artist employed in the variation drawings. Matisse executed four charcoal drawings, and thirty-four studies in pen and black ink, of which the present work is one. The year '1943' which appears at lower right was applied later by the artist and is incorrect; the drawing was actually done in 1942.
Louis Aragon (1897-1982), a poet and novelist, was a founding member of the Dada and Surrealist movements in France. He pioneered the technique of automatic writing. During the 1930s Aragon actively sympathized with the political and social goals of the Soviet Russian regime and wrote 'agitprop' verse. Criticized by André Breton for doing so, Aragon left the Surrealist inner circle, but continued to practice its tenets in his work. He served as a soldier in the French army in 1940, and after the defeat of France was active in the resistance.
Aragon and his partner Elsa Tricolet (sister-in-law of the great Soviet poet Mayakovsky) first met Matisse in Nice in late 1941, while the painter was recovering from intestinal surgery. Matisse had already embarked upon his celebrated series of drawings Thèmes et variations. In March 1942 Aragon agreed to write the introduction for the publication by Martin Fabiani of the complete series, which took place the following year. In his text Aragon drew heavily on statements by the artist about the process of drawing, and as a Surrealist he saw similarities with Matisse's spontaneous, fluent manner of line drawing. During these meetings Matisse drew a series of portraits of Aragon, following the sequential process the artist employed in the variation drawings. Matisse executed four charcoal drawings, and thirty-four studies in pen and black ink, of which the present work is one. The year '1943' which appears at lower right was applied later by the artist and is incorrect; the drawing was actually done in 1942.