Alcools: Poems (1898-1913). Avec un Portrait de L’Auteur par Pablo Picasso.

APOLLINAIRE, Guillaume. [Pablo Picasso].

$35,000.00

Item Number: 128083

Paris: Mercure de France, 1913.

First edition of Apollinaire’s first collection of poems, signed by him and Pablo Picasso. Octavo, bound in three quarter morocco with gilt titles and raised bands to the spine, patterned endpapers, frontispiece portrait of the poet by Pablo Picasso. Association copy, inscribed by both Apollinaire and Pablo Picasso on front free endpaper, “A A P.N. Roinard son admirateur Guillaume Apollinaire” and “et pour Robert Valançay Picasso Paris Janvier 1940 et I.” Apollinaire has also made five corrections to the text in ink on pages 71, 77, 92, 110 and 189. The recipient of Apollinaire’s inscription, Paul-Napoléon Roinard, was a French libertarian painter and poet whom Apollinaire befriended in 1903 and considered “one of the most powerful precursors of the new poetry.” Apollinaire dedicated his poem Le Brasier (included in the present volume on p. 129) to Roinard. The recipient of Picasso’s inscription, Robert Valançay, was a poet, translator and literary critic who worked with and admired many of the artists and poets of the surrealist group. He published two major volumes of poetry but was most appreciated and sought after for his translations. He was considered the official translator of Max Ernst and Hans Arp. In near fine condition. Original wrappers bound in. A remarkable association copy, linking four major figures of the literary and artistic avant-gardes of the 20th century.

French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of the early 20th century, as well as one of the most impassioned defenders of Cubism and a forefather of Surrealism. At the turn of the 20th century, he became one of the most popular members of the artistic community of Paris (both in Montmartre and Montparnasse). His friends and collaborators in that period included Pablo Picasso, Henri Rousseau, Gertrude Stein, Max Jacob, André Salmon, André Breton, André Derain, Faik Konitza, Blaise Cendrars, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Pierre Reverdy, Alexandra Exter, Jean Cocteau, Erik Satie, Ossip Zadkine, Marc Chagall, Marcel Duchamp and Jean Metzinger. He is credited with coining the term "Cubism" in 1911 to describe the emerging art movement, the term Orphism in 1912, and the term "Surrealism" in 1917 to describe the works of Erik Satie.