Books

WRITTEN IN FRENCH

In 2003, a unique ensemble entered the National Museum of Modern Art: part of André Breton's collection exhibited on one of the walls of his studio at 42 rue Fontaine in Paris, where the poet and founder of Surrealism lived and conducted this decisive artistic and literary movement of the 20th century for more than forty years.

The objects on the "Mur Breton" come from various cultures and geographical areas: Oceania, the Americas, European popular art and modern art (including remarkable works by Douanier Rousseau, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Francis Picabia, Valentine Hugo or Jean Degottex).

The "Mur Breton" was the subject of a famous photographic campaign in 1960 by Sabine Weiss. This work, published to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Surrealism in 2024, gives its full measure to this exceptional world-object, a true museum within the museum.

Through international scientific contributions and the mobilization of expertise as numerous as the fields summoned by André Breton's collection, the challenge here is to study for the first time, in the form of a well-argued catalog, the entirety of the objects which make up this Wall and the poet's office.

A more speculative side finally aims to think about historical, anthropological and museum-related questions that are truly contemporary, while decisively contributing to this unprecedented aspect of Surrealism.

French
400 pages / 400 illustrations

Éditions du Centre Pompidou