André Breton – Signed Autograph Letter

Autograph letter signed to Francis Dumont. Antibes March 13, 1948; 1 page ¼ in-4°
André Breton does not take a very good view of the draft testimony on Surrealism that is submitted to him: “Confused to let myself be called to order by telegram. I would have answered you sooner if it hadn't cost me so much to disappoint you. You can specify the few biographical elements that you are missing about me in the editor's introduction to “Surrealism and Painting” (New York, Brentano's). It will be easy for you to leaf through a copy in some bookstores in the 6th century. Everything was said there, under my control. Naturally, I am delighted that the establishment of this Gavroche page has been entrusted to you. As for the La Gazette des Lettres project, I have a hard time seeing myself playing the role you assign to me. “A quarter of a century…”, no doubt, but this is the last commemoration in which I can take part. I have no desire to compete on this occasion with the “ex-surrealists of the CNE” whom you believe you must consult and whose testimony I reject in advance. Do these gentlemen ever offer me a discussion? Is it not perfectly understood that the very weapons they use against others as well as against me make any public debate derisory from which any loyalty on their part is ruled out by definition. Furthermore, I am tired, I admit, of having to constantly fix the prospects of surrealist activity in a more or less near future. I explained this sufficiently in the interviews with Littéraire, Combat and Paru. I hate to repeat myself and, even more, to appear to plead for the viability of a cause which, from this angle, has already proven itself. It seems to me that you could, with much more profit, question young anarchists, such as Sarane Alexandrian (G R. Borinod, XVIII), Claude Tarnaud (9 impasse de l'enfant Jésus XV), Alain Jouffroy (10 av Ducis ( Malmaison), Jean-Louis Bédouin (24 qui du Louvre 1er), Gaston Puel (17 r. de la Berchère, Albi). This would have a chance of bringing something new. And also, naturally, Henri Pastoureau (26, r. des Plantes, XIV), Pierre Mabille (34 r. Raynouard XVI), Victor Brauner (2bis, Perrel, assures me that this would be much less vain than hoping to obtain a statement from Picasso, for example, who refused statements of this kind all his life and from whom I would certainly not want to request. You know my dear Friend, that I have the deepest esteem and great personal sympathy for you. I very much desire to be agreeable to you but it is still necessary that the steps to which you invite me also agree with me. As much as I would see interest in bringing together honest and significant testimonies concerning surrealism, I tend to turn away from anything that can be thrown away in haste and without serious efforts of information, documentation and synthesis at the already so jaded curiosity of the public…”