ELUARD Paul (1895-1952). Lot n° 48

266 L.A.S. "Paul", 1924-1948, to GALA; 407 pages various sizes, including 40 postcards (some letters in pencil, 7 unsigned, wetness on one letter), some envelopes, mounted on tabs on wove paper leaves, all bound in 2 volumes in-4 (1924-1931 and 1932-1948), full burgundy morocco, smooth spine titled in gold, mouse-grey suede lining and endpapers, titled folders, slipcases (C. and J.P. Miguet). Magnificent intimate and loving correspondence to Gala, his first wife who will become Dali's wife; the most beautiful and richest loving correspondence of surrealism. Éluard met Helena Dmitrievna Diakonova, called Gala, in December 1912, at the sanatorium of Clavadel in Switzerland, where both of them, aged 17, were treating a tuberculosis. Gala returned to Russia and to Paris in 1916; in February 1917, she married Éluard, and in 1918 had a daughter, Cécile. In 1921, she became the mistress of Max Ernst, who joined the Éluard couple in 1922 in their house in Eaubonne; destabilized by this ménage à trois, Éluard fled in 1924 for a trip around the world (the first letter of this correspondence is sent from Venezuela). On his return, life together resumed, and letters filled Gala's absences. In August 1929, Éluard and Gala come to see Dali in Cadaquès; it is the love at first sight between Dali and Gala, who will not leave the painter from now on; Éluard goes back alone to Paris; in 1932, Gala marries Dali. Shortly after their separation, Éluard met Maria Benz known as Nusch, whom he will marry in 1934. About sixty letters precede the separation of 1929; most of the correspondence, always amorous and often very sensual, is later, and extends from 1929 to 1948, four years before the death of the poet. "Here is Paul Éluard raw, Éluard surprising, Éluard enriched, Éluard living of all his life. The eroticism of these letters - daydream, precise memory, account of a dream or magnificent masturbation - becomes one of those multiplied expressions of love, a net of simple words and strong images in which, once again, a great poet holds us. [...] Whether he loved Gala, [...] whether he loved her "from all eternity", these letters bring us closer to that fight against time in which Paul Éluard always chose love as his first weapon. [...] Strong love exists outside the duration of things, and Gala is its pyramid. [...] It was born for her and through her. She is his origin and his destiny, she is his freedom, she is simply himself" (Jean-Claude Carrière). Beyond the love for his "little girl", his "daragaïa", we read in these letters the problems of daily life and the lack of money, health worries, news of their daughter Cécile, the purchase of art objects and paintings, Parisian literary life, the work of the poet, the conflicts in the surrealist group, the torments of History... Many characters, writers and artists, are evoked here, besides "the small Dali": André Breton, Aragon, René Crevel, Benjamin Péret, René Char, Max Ernst, Picasso, Valentine Hugo, Man Ray, Joe Bousquet, Giacometti, etc. We can only give here a very brief outline of this rich and ardent correspondence, with some quotations. [Cristobal (Venezuela) May 12, 1924]. "You are the only precious one. I love only you, I have never loved anyone else. I cannot love anything else. 1927. In May, violent brawl at André Breton's house with "Max Ernst the Pig"; Éluard is punched in the eye and disfigured; he thinks of "the Pig Verlaine shooting at Rimbaud, wounding him"; he wanted to "kill the Pig", but it is you who would have suffered"... "I miss your body, your eyes, your mouth, your whole presence"... Writes a manifesto with Breton Lautréamont against all odds... In June, sale to Alphonse Kann of paintings by Chirico and Picasso... 1928. In March, from the sanatorium in Arosa, he asks Gala to buy him watercolours by Paul Klee in Berlin. Back in Eaubonne, he sells an Eskimo ivory to Ratton. Erotic dream: "I was lying on a bed next to a man I am not sure I can identify, but a submissive man, a lifelong dreamer and silent. I turn my back to him. And you come to lie against me, enamoured, and you kiss my lips gently, very gently, and I caress under your dress your fluid breasts, so lively, and very gently, your hand over me goes to find the other person and imposes itself on his sex. [...] And your kiss becomes warmer, wetter and your eyes open more and more. The life of the other passes into you and, soon, it is as if you were jerking off a dead man. [...] I have only one desire: to see you, to touch you, to fuck you, to talk to you, to admire you, to caress you, to adore you, to look at you, I love you, I love you only, the most beautiful and in all women I find only you: all