Eluard and Man Ray, Paul.

Facile.

Paris: GLM, 1935. 4to.; illustrated throughout in b&w; extremities rubbed, light spotting to covers; pictorial wrappers; mylar wrappers.

$100,000

First edition. Sold with an original hand-tinted photograph by Hans Bellmer. Inscribed by Eluard and Man Ray to Hans Bellmer on half title page: a Hans Bellmer en toute amitiée, Paul Eluard to which the photographer adds et Man Ray. It is a remarkable association copy of this perfectly formed and highly influential collaboration, linking three major figures of Surrealism.  Bellmer’s own book, the supremely obsessive Die Puppe, had appeared one year ahead of Facile but echoes Man Ray’s influence.  Bellmer’s deeply unsettling images captivated Eluard, who arranged the publication of some of these in Minotaure while working on a French edition of the book published the following year (La Poupée, 1936).  After Minotaure most major international Surrealist exhibitions included the work of both Man Ray and Hans Bellmer.  Eluard and Bellmer collaborated on their own blend of verse and photography Les Jeux de la Poupée, which was complete in 1938, but remained unpublished until 1949.  Facile is “one of the iconic French photobooks of the 1930s…a landmark modernist book and an inspiration to generations of graphic designers” (The Photobook).  It is “a fluent but not at all facile collaboration between the poet, the photographer, the model and muse, and the publisher” (101 Books).  1 of 200 copies hors commerce, this one is numbered 91.  101 Books, p. 87; The Open Book, pp. 118-19; Regards à travers le livre 48.