Salvador Dali
Apollinaire "The Trenches" , 1967
Original Etching
15.0 " x 11.0 "
SECRET POEMS BY APOLLINAIRE
Apollinaire was one of the most popular members of the artistic community of Montparnasse in Paris. His friends and collaborators in that period included Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Max Jacob, André Salmon, Marie Laurencin, André Breton, André Derain, Faik Konica, Blaise Cendrars, Pierre Reverdy, Alexandra Exter, Jean Cocteau, Erik Satie, Ossip Zadkine, Marc Chagall, and Marcel Duchamp. In 1911, he joined the Puteaux Group, a branch of the cubist movement
Dali's initial plan was to illustrate a number of songs by Georges Brassens, shown with his guitar on the first etchings, singing the feminine body. However, the singer's agent recommended so many changes, that Dali shifted themes, and turned "Les Tranchées" into a military ground, where time seems at a standstill, like a "Montre Molle" rock. Seeing in the plates a correlation with the 1914-1918 war, Pierre Argillet suggested that Dali illustrate instead the "Poèmes Secrets" by Apollinaire. From then on, the series took a more unconventional, more Surrealist turn, with compositions like 'La Femme à l'Escargot", "La Femme à la Fontaine" covered by giant ants, and "L'Homme au Tiroir', who ends up devouring his guitar.
Suite of 18 original etchings reworked in drypoint of which 10 are 15 x 11 inches and 8 are vignettes, published in 1967. There was also a separate edition of 145 on Japanese paper, watercolored. The vignettes were published in a separate edition titled Petits nus d'Apollinaire in an edition of 95. Some were used as Christmas cards.
$6,850