Pierre SOULAGES (1919 - 2022) Etching III, 1956 Etching on Rives wove paper signed in the plate, countersigned and dedicated in pencil "A Jean Cayrol, en sympathie" lower right. Proof coming with its folding catalog "Pierre Soulages" at the Galerie de France in 1956, from an edition of 400 proofs, here copy 275. Lacourières Paris imprimeur, Galerie de France éditeur Plate dimensions : 26.7 x 19.5 cm Flat catalog dimensions : 26.7 x 37.5 cm Reference: Pierre Encrevé, Soulages l'œuvre imprimé, Bibliothèque Nationale de France -BNF, Paris, 2003 French writer Jean Cayrol was born in Bordeaux on June 6, 1911. After studying law and literature, he became a librarian to get closer to poetry, an art form that had always attracted him. He soon became involved with the Surrealist movement, composing poems on his own. But then war broke out. Jean Cayrol soon joined the Resistance as a member of the Rémy network. He was denounced and deported to the Mauthausen camp in 1942. He was liberated in 1945. After a difficult return to Bordeaux, he moved to Paris, where he befriended Jean Marcenac, Louis Aragon and Paul Éluard through the Comité national des écrivains, with whom he kept up a lifelong correspondence. He went on to write Poèmes de la nuit et du brouillard (1946), in which he addresses the horror of the camps and the sad, poetic reality of the human condition. In 1955, the author wrote the accompanying text for Alain Resnais's film Nuit et brouillard. In the following years, he became fully involved in Parisian life as a talent scout, poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter and film director. From 1973, he was a member of the Académie Goncourt, and took pleasure in surrounding himself with numerous objets d'art. After these heady years, he gradually retired to Bordeaux. He was awarded the Grand Prix National des Lettres in 1984. He died in 2005.