VIERNES, 20 DE MARZO DE 2026 
The Remarkable Library of Dr Marcel Zara
O n Friday 20 March 2026, Mirabaud-Mercier will offer for sale at Drouot an exceptional and previously unseen ensemble comprising the entire library of Dr Marcel Zara (1911–1974), a friend and physician to numerous artists of the Dada and Surrealist movements.
A devoted lover of poetry, Dr Marcel Zara was also the physician to many writers of his time, several of whom became close friends. Preserved by his heirs, this remarkably coherent collection is estimated at €600,000–800,000. It comprises nearly 350 volumes and manuscripts from the 19th and 20th centuries devoted to poetry, many of them of great rarity and value, often finely bound by the leading bookbinders of their day and bearing distinguished inscriptions. The ensemble also includes paintings and drawings by Surrealist artists such as Wifredo Lam, Oscar Dominguez and Marie Laurencin.
Following a group of 19th-century works—largely devoted to Hugo, Verlaine and Rimbaud—the core of the collection centres on three major 20th-century poets: Guillaume Apollinaire, René Char and Henri Michaux. First editions, autograph manuscripts, corrected proofs, presentation copies and association copies appear alongside books illustrated by Dali, Dufy, Ernst, Giacometti, Kandinsky, Lam, Masson, Miro, Picasso and Zao Wou-Ki, many of them bound by the great binders of the period, including Paul Bonet, Henri Leroux and Pierre-Lucien Martin.
Among the most significant examples for Apollinaire are a rare copy of the mythical Case d’Armons; Le Bestiaire, illustrated by Dufy and bound by Bonet, together with a further set of proofs of the same work; one of just 20 copies of Calligrammes printed on vellum, inscribed to André Rouveyre and likewise bound by Bonet; the corrected proofs of Les Mamelles de Tiresias, bound by Martin; and the autograph letters addressed by the poet to his childhood friend Toussaint Luca.
For René Char, who was a friend of Dr Zara, numerous copies are enriched with inscriptions and autograph leaves. Alongside first editions bound by Leroux, Martin and Monique Mathieu are notably the manuscripts of Arsenal, L’Âge cassant and Dans la pluie giboyeuse.
As for Michaux, the collection includes numerous large-paper first editions, illustrated either by the author himself or by other artists, several of them finely bound: En rêvant à partir de peintures énigmatiques, a copy on Japon paper bound by Leroux; La Vie dans les plis, a copy on laid paper bound by Bonet; and others.
An junior hospital doctor at the Paris hospitals before the Second World War, Marcel Zara was mobilised in 1939. Taken prisoner “while heading north rather than south”, as he liked to recall, he was deported to several camps, including Rawa Ruska, grimly nicknamed by Winston Churchill “the camp of the drop of water”. After the war, he settled in Paris in 1947 as an endocrinologist and practised at La Pitié-Salpêtrière until 1968.
A man of science and humanist conviction, he combined medical rigour with intellectual curiosity. Passionately engaged with Surrealism and close to figures such as René Char and Man Ray, he pursued a distinctly Rabelaisian spirit, exploring the dialogue between scientific knowledge and the imagination. A discerning bibliophile and member of specialist societies, he commissioned bindings of exceptional quality and assembled a remarkable library reflecting his taste for literature and the avant-garde. Until his final days, he continued to enrich this collection, entrusting to his son, Alain Zara, the task of extending it towards Romanticism. Marcel Zara’s library thus remains a vivid testament to a life devoted to medicine, culture and the love of books.
Following a group of 19th-century works—largely devoted to Hugo, Verlaine and Rimbaud—the core of the collection centres on three major 20th-century poets: Guillaume Apollinaire, René Char and Henri Michaux. First editions, autograph manuscripts, corrected proofs, presentation copies and association copies appear alongside books illustrated by Dali, Dufy, Ernst, Giacometti, Kandinsky, Lam, Masson, Miro, Picasso and Zao Wou-Ki, many of them bound by the great binders of the period, including Paul Bonet, Henri Leroux and Pierre-Lucien Martin.
Among the most significant examples for Apollinaire are a rare copy of the mythical Case d’Armons; Le Bestiaire, illustrated by Dufy and bound by Bonet, together with a further set of proofs of the same work; one of just 20 copies of Calligrammes printed on vellum, inscribed to André Rouveyre and likewise bound by Bonet; the corrected proofs of Les Mamelles de Tiresias, bound by Martin; and the autograph letters addressed by the poet to his childhood friend Toussaint Luca.
For René Char, who was a friend of Dr Zara, numerous copies are enriched with inscriptions and autograph leaves. Alongside first editions bound by Leroux, Martin and Monique Mathieu are notably the manuscripts of Arsenal, L’Âge cassant and Dans la pluie giboyeuse.
As for Michaux, the collection includes numerous large-paper first editions, illustrated either by the author himself or by other artists, several of them finely bound: En rêvant à partir de peintures énigmatiques, a copy on Japon paper bound by Leroux; La Vie dans les plis, a copy on laid paper bound by Bonet; and others.
Marcel Zara (1911 – 1974)
An junior hospital doctor at the Paris hospitals before the Second World War, Marcel Zara was mobilised in 1939. Taken prisoner “while heading north rather than south”, as he liked to recall, he was deported to several camps, including Rawa Ruska, grimly nicknamed by Winston Churchill “the camp of the drop of water”. After the war, he settled in Paris in 1947 as an endocrinologist and practised at La Pitié-Salpêtrière until 1968.
A man of science and humanist conviction, he combined medical rigour with intellectual curiosity. Passionately engaged with Surrealism and close to figures such as René Char and Man Ray, he pursued a distinctly Rabelaisian spirit, exploring the dialogue between scientific knowledge and the imagination. A discerning bibliophile and member of specialist societies, he commissioned bindings of exceptional quality and assembled a remarkable library reflecting his taste for literature and the avant-garde. Until his final days, he continued to enrich this collection, entrusting to his son, Alain Zara, the task of extending it towards Romanticism. Marcel Zara’s library thus remains a vivid testament to a life devoted to medicine, culture and the love of books.
