LA CHEVELURE DU CHOSES. 1961. ONE OF 300 NUMBERED EXAMPLES

Paris: Galerie Rive Gauche, 1961

28 x 22.5cm, 32 unnumbered pages. 19 offset lithographs by Jorn and Dotremont. Printed wrappers housed in publisher’s slipcase. First edition. One of 300 numbered examples (all published) of this exemplary post-Cobra period collaboration. A text introduction by Alechinsky is followed by lithographic reproductions of the title cycle of “word-pictures” executed by Jorn and Dotremont between 1948 & 53. During the winter of 1951-2, Dotremont spent 3 months in Silkeborg Sanitarium (suffering from tuberculosis) in the same ward as Jorn. Here, they worked on a series of “black-humored” word-picture drawings on the theme of hospital life. Guy Atkins has remarked that “All the drawings in this book are remarkable for the way that the words and images wander over and into each other and become inextricable, and for the rough and smudgy self-assurance of the brush and pen strokes”. A fine example in very good slipcase with a little sun damage to the latter.