GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE.

Calligrams. Lithos de Chirico. Paris, Librairie Gallimard, 1930. In-folio, in sheets, filled illustrated cover, black half-cover and illustrated case from the publisher. The only painter's book by Giorgio de Chirico, illustrated with 68 original lithographs. Limited edition of 131 copies: one of the 88 on China paper (no. 72), signed by the painter. An important illustrated book initiated by André Malraux, appointed in October 1928 artistic director of NRF Editions: printed by Darantière in a much larger format than the original edition, the deluxe edition of Calligrammes is first and foremost a tribute by the painter to his friend who died. Giorgio de Chirico and Guillaume Apollinaire met shortly after the Salon d'Automne of 1912. "Apollinaire, who visited him at his studio, placed Chirico among the four most important painters of his generation, along with Picasso, Braque and Derain. He even declared him "the most astonishing"" (Antoine Coron). The poet has dedicated many articles to Chirico's work and dedicated to him one of Calligrams' poems: Océan de Terre. Although the illustrated edition initially drew some criticism, its success was met with reservations. "On the whole," writes Antoine Coron, "the illustration composes a coherent system of new images which, instead of reproducing the painter's usual iconography, proposes a new one, which will again become, forty years later, a source of inspiration for him. Thus Calligrams is not only a beautiful, serious book, a tomb composed in memory of the poet who was undoubtedly the most important for Chirico, it is also a date in the history of his painting". Nice copy preserved as published. Small wear and tear on the cuts and on the back of the case. (Coron, De Goya à Max Ernst, 2018, nº 40 - Johnson, Artists' Books in the Modern Era 1870-2000, nº 105: "The enthusiastic espousal of his art by Apollinaire in 1914 was a turning point in Chirico's career." Skira, An