159 - Henri MICHAUX. A Reading of Eight Lithographs by Zao Wou-Ki. Paris, Éditions Euros and Robert J. Godet, 1950.

Henri MICHAUX. A Reading of Eight Lithographs by Zao Wou-Ki. Paris, Éditions Euros and Robert J. Godet, 1950. Folio, loose-leaf, illustrated hardcover, publisher’s slipcase. First edition: illustrated with 8 original color lithographs by Zao Wou-Ki. Books are boring to read. No free movement. We are invited to follow. The path is laid out, singular. The painting is entirely different: immediate, total. To the left, too, to the right, into the depths, at will. No single path, a thousand paths, and the pauses are not marked. As soon as one desires it, the painting again, whole. In an instant, everything is there. Everything, yet nothing is known yet. This is where one must truly begin to READ. An important book, marking the first collaboration between Henri Michaux and Zao Wou-Ki. It also features the first poet illustrated by the Chinese painter, who had been living in France for a few months. In early 1949, Zao Wou-Ki had experimented with lithography at the Desjobert: impressed by the results, publisher Robert Godet invited Henri Michaux, who, captivated by the work, wrote eight poems to accompany the eight lithographs. Godet partnered with Chou Ling, director of Éditions Euros in Paris, to finance the publication. “This collaborative work—the only example in which the illustrations precede the text—marked the beginning of his friendship with Henri Michaux, which lasted uninterrupted until Michaux’s death in 1984. […] This first book is also the first example of the fusion that Zao Wou-Ki undertook between his culture of origin and his adopted culture” (Yann Hendgen). Subsequently, Zao Wou-Ki illustrated two other texts by Henri Michaux, *En Occident le jardin d’une femme indienne* (1986) and *Annonciation* (1996). (Hendgen, *Zao Wou-Ki et les poètes*, 2015, pp. 69–69.—Marie Minssieux-Chamonard, *Zao Wou-Ki, Prints and Illustrated Books*, BnF, 2008, p. 18: “It was a great stroke of luck for Zao Wou-Ki, who at the time did not speak French and was unaware even of Michaux’s name.”) The more valuable of the two first editions on Chinese paper reserved for the authors, bearing a signed autograph dedication from the poet to the painter: With gratitude and friendship to Zao Wou-Ki who helped me rediscover the spirit of China with subtleties that are uniquely his own Henri Michaux Recalling the book years later in his *Autoportrait* (p. 79), Zao Wou-Ki confessed: “This encounter was decisive because Michaux’s attention to my work gave me confidence. Whenever I found myself doubting, Michaux’s opinion overcame my inner confusion and allowed me to continue, to start anew.” The copy is described at length in the catalog *Henri Michaux & Zao Wou-Ki in the Empire of Signs* from the 2015–2016 exhibition at the Martin Bodmer Foundation in Cologny (p. 192). There is another copy of the book in the Zao Wou-Ki archives, inscribed by the poet “to my inspiration,” one of the out-of-print editions on B.F.K. paper. The other copy, on Chinese paper, was given as a gift and inscribed by the poet to Micheline Phamkin in the early 1960s.