Peintures: sept poèmes et seize illustrations

Henri MichauxWW-1939-019790

1939·Book printed on Normandy vellum with one gouache drawing on cream laid paper·H.: 17 cm (6 3/4 in.)

Within this small volume of poems and visceral illustrations, Henri Michaux pulls the reader into his melancholic exploration of language and being. On the page titled Têtes, or, Heads, a short stanza precedes the poem: <pre><code> “When I start spreading paint on the canvas, a monstrous head usually appears.” </code></pre> This limited publication run also includes a small gouache painting by Michaux of two disembodied heads. Their lack of defined features and void-like eyes visually manifest the desolation that Michaux describes in the poems.

Catalogue

Year: 1939
Medium: Book printed on Normandy vellum with one gouache drawing on cream laid paper
Dimensions: H.: 17 cm (6 3/4 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Henri Michaux

Artist

Henri Michaux

Painting

Henri Michaux was a Belgian-born French experimental poet, writer and painter. Michaux is renowned for his strange, highly original poetry and prose, and also for his art: the Paris Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York had shows of his work in 1978. His autobiographical texts that chronicle his psychedelic experiments with LSD and mescaline include Miserable Miracle and The Major Ordeals of the Mind and the Countless Minor Ones. He is recognised for his idiosyncratic travelogues and books of art criticism. Michaux is also known for his stories about Plume – "a peaceable man" – one of the most unenterprising heroes in literature, a character subject to many misfortunes.

Namur, Belgium

Full artist profile →