134 - [Henri MICHAUX]. Jorge de LIMA. Photographs of collages. August 25, 1939. 15 black-and-white or sepia photographs (ranging from 14.5 x 12 cm to 11 x 17 cm). In an envelope bearing a few handwritten notes and small sketches in pencil.

[Henri MICHAUX]. Jorge de LIMA. Photographs of collages. August 25, 1939. 15 black-and-white or sepia photographs (ranging from 14.5 x 12 cm to 11 x 17 cm). In an envelope bearing a few handwritten notes and small sketches in pencil. A remarkable collection of 15 photographs of collages by Jorge de Lima, brought back from Brazil by Henri Michaux; five of them are dated on the back in his handwriting as August 25, 1939. In the spirit—and under the influence—of Max Ernst, the photomontages and collages blend figures from women’s fashion, engravings, elements of ancient sculpture, and urban landscapes. A Brazilian surrealist writer and poet, Jorge de Lima (1893–1953) was a pioneer of photomontage in his country. Thus, 41 of his photomontages created between 1930 and 1940 were compiled into an album published in 1943 under the title *A Pintura em Pânico*, the first book of its kind to appear in Brazil. (A handful of the collages pictured here were selected for inclusion in the volume.) The book was published with a lengthy quotation from Michaux, who had met Lima in Rio de Janeiro. He also wrote to Paulhan to recommend the man he regarded as “the best Brazilian poet, along with Murelo Mendès” and to send him some poems—which Paulhan published in the NRF. “Jorge de Lima (a physician by profession, one of the few intellectuals in his country of almost purely Indigenous descent) was a friend of Bernanos’s. In two ways: as a writer, he had welcomed him to Rio, and as a surgeon, he had treated his son Yves. […] Jorge de Lima is ‘a very kind and friendly man,’ HM would later write in a letter from the war, ‘a friend of Bernanos’s and, to some extent, mine as well’” (Jean-Pierre Martin, pp. 323–324). The envelope in which the images are preserved bears pencil notes in Michaux’s hand. Five of these images therefore bear the date “25.8.1939” on the back, in Michaux’s hand. The collection comes from the archives of Jacques-Olivier Fourcade, to whom Henri Michaux had entrusted it; they may have been considering a publication. These photographs were included with the photographs and drawings of trees described under the following number.