MASEREEL / DESNOS.- DAMASK (L.-G.). Pigments. With a preface - Lot 618

Lot 618
Go to lot
Estimation :
200 - 250 EUR
Result without fees
Result : 650EUR
MASEREEL / DESNOS.- DAMASK (L.-G.). Pigments. With a preface - Lot 618
MASEREEL / DESNOS.- DAMASK (L.-G.). Pigments. With a preface by Robert Desnos and a woodcut by Frans Masereel. P., GLM, 1937, 8°, non-paginated, br. (upper corner peeled). Original edition printed at 300 copies, plus a few copies out of print. Ex. H.C. enriched with a shipment (name of the dedicatee erased). This poetic collection is part of the negritude movement, of which Damascus was one of the co-founders, along with Aimé Césaire and Léopold Sédar Senghor. "Pigments" is one of the first books in which the condition of "negro" was fully assumed, before the movement became systematic in the 1940s. From the preface, Robert Desnos thus remarks that "Damascus is a negro and is due to its quality and its negro condition. This will raise the ears of a number of civilizers who find it fair that in exchange for their freedoms, land, customs and health, people of colour should be honoured with the name "Negroes". The collection reveals opposition to a certain bourgeois-inspired Creole education, which Damascus saw as an imposed acculturation. As such, one of its major themes was the shame of assimilation. Damascus became a member of Parliament for French Guyana in 1948 and sat in the Assembly until 1951.
My orders
Sale information
Sales conditions
Return to catalogue