L'antitête: Monsieur Aa l'antiphilosophe (1 of 3 v.)
Artist: Max Ernst (French, 1891-1976)
Publisher: Bordas ([Paris], 1949)
Author: Tristan Tzara (French (born Romania), 1896-1963)
Date: 1949
Dimensions:
Slipcase: H: 6 11/16 in. (170 mm); W: 4 15/16 in. (125 mm); Depth: 4 1/8 in. (105 mm).
Book: H: 6 1/16 in. (154 mm); W: 4 9/16 in. (116 mm); Depth: 1 3/8 in. (35 mm).
Page (untrimmed): H: 5 1/2 in. (140 mm); W: 4 5/16 in. (110 mm).
Medium: Etchings
Classification: Books
Credit Line: Gift of Molly and Walter Bareiss
Object number: 1984.949A
Label Text:The first volume of L'Antitete covers 1920 to 1922. Monsieur Aa is a persona of the poet, an irrepressible non--stop voice that mocks everything and everyone, including himself and the book that he (that is Tzara) is writing. Ernst's etchings are inspired by Tzar's vocabulary and by his portrait of Monsieur Aa as the embodiment of Dada. The imagery is made up of birds, fish, or masks against against patterns of speckles, dots, or crisscross lines. These images reflect Tzara's emphasis on the tiny and the textural, such as eyebrows, pebbles, insects, "les microbes chauds" (warm microbes), "des nombrils d'oiseaux" (birds' bellybuttons). (Excerpt from Anne Hyde Greet's "Max Ernst and the Artist's Book," pages 106-108 in MAX ERNST : BEYOND SURREALISM, 1986.)
DescriptionOriginal prints: 8 etchings with aquatint in colors, plus a suite of the 8 etchings with added handcoloring.
Text: letterpress.
Paper: van Gelder cream laid paper, watermarked.
Text: letterpress.
Paper: van Gelder cream laid paper, watermarked.
Not on view
In Collection(s)