Our Notes & References

Unique copy of this livre d’artiste, with a lovely, personal, double inscription to the artists’ friend Salvador Dali, the complete maquette of the book in a second volume, and in a Leroux binding integrating all original copper plates.

This is the copy num. 4 of only 80 copies, from the tirage de tête of 7 copies with an original watercolour by Baltazar and additional handwritten verses by Arrabal. All copies are signed by both artists.

The second volume present here isn’t usually found in copies of the 1-volume book, as includes extensive added material. (We could trace another one of the 7 copies, inscribed to Aragon and in a 1988 Miguet binding – in the usual one volume.)

The maquette is signed and dated by artist and author (3 and 4 Dec., 1979, respectively) and it includes: a mock-up of the double title page with drawings in ink; multiple drafts of the sonnets with Arrabal’s pencil corrections and two versions of the limitation page, including inked borders by Baltazar that do not appear in the published book; and trial proofs of the 5 etchings, each accompanied by the note “essai avant aciérage”.

The leaves of the maquette are loosely bound, with cardboard cover and slipcover both decorated in India ink and signed “Baltazar 2:12.1979”. The whole is presented in a hardback folder bound in grey suede and black box calf, inset with four of Baltazar’s five copper etching plates for Cinco sonetos. The fifth original plate appears on the slipcase that contains both maquette and finished book.

“Réalisme glacial ou onirisme débordant, on ne sait jamais, avec Arrabal, si l’œuvre appartient au fantasme, au ricanement ou au témoignage. Et c’est justement ce qui fait son attrait: elle désoriente, elle provoque.” (Clavel)

Arrabal’s five poems appear under such headings as “Te regalare un pequeño ataúd” and “El entierro de la sardina” (the latter after Goya, a Spanish folk ritual, and the author’s own absurdist novel of two decades prior). They are matched with Baltazar’s five part-coloured abstract etchings, each signed in pencil by the artist, who also opens the volume with a full-page image in watercolour, India ink, and coloured pencil, followed by watercolour contributions to the double title page.

Contemporary Spanish playwright, poet, novelist, and filmmaker Fernando Arrabal Terán was born in the North African exclave of Melilla in 1932, and has been based in Paris since 1955. A friend of artists and writers such as Duchamp, Beckett, Ionesco, Tzara, and Warhol, he spent three years in André Breton’s surrealist group in Paris, and was a co-founder of the Mouvement panique in 1962. Among his many other activities, Arrabal has created over 700 artists’ books, in collaboration with such figures as René Magritte, Milan Kundera, and Michel Houellebecq.

Collaborators have also included Salvador Dalí. It was Dalí who introduced Arrabal to the co-creator of Cinco sonetos. Born Hervé Lambion (Paris, 1949), Julius Baltazar was rebaptised by Dalí in 1967, when the latter took the budding artist under his wing. The next year both Baltazar and Arrabal were invited to stay with Dalí at his house in Cadaqués, Catalonia, a sojourn fondly recalled in this book’s double dedication:

“Ha! Dalí! Quels moments à Cadaquès, les sardines grillées … Souvenir amical de Baltazar, 17-02-1980.”

“A mi querido amigo Dalí … en recuerdo de nuestras noches exaltantes que nadie conocera nunca. Besos pánicos, F. Arrabal, 17-11-1980.”

Provenance

Salvador Dali (title-page dedications in pencil by Arrabal and Baltazar).

Bibliography

Clavel, A. “Arrabal, Fernando,” in J. Beaumarchais, ed., Dictionnaire des littératures de langue française, vol. 1. Paris: Bordas, 1984. p. 85.