DEONNA (W.). From Mars to the Holy Land. Art and the subcons - Lot 675

DEONNA (W.). From Mars to the Holy Land. Art and the subconscious. A medium painter: Hélène Smith. P., E. de Boccard, 1932, fort 8°, 403 p., br. with full cover (spine browned, pale scattered russets). First edition. Hélène Smith is the assumed name under which the Swiss medium Catherine Élise Müller (1861-1929) became famous, under the pen of psychologist Théodore Flournoy. She collected texts in Martian and transcribed them into French, developing a form of automatic writing. During these visions, she also drew Martian landscapes, plants and invented beings. These drawings are preserved in the Théodore Flournoy archives at the Bibliothèque de Genève and were exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2022. In March-April 1905, she painted her first religiously inspired picture. She stopped painting in 1915. Hélène Smith inspired the Surrealists, who made her one of the figures in their 1940 card game "Jeu de Marseille". Hélène appears drawn as a siren of knowledge by Victor Brauner.