Almanach illustré du Pere Ubu.
BONNARD, Pierre. Almanach illustré du Père Ubu (XXe Siècle). En Vente Partout. Text by Alfred Jarry. 56 pp., illustrated with 79 pen and ink drawings by Bonnard, executed in lithograph and printed in red and blue. Folio, 287 x 203 mm., uncut and unopened. Loose in original wrappers as issued. [Paris: Ambroise Vollard], 1er Janvier 1901.
Guillaume Apollinaire wrote that "It was in the cellar of the rue Lafitte, in Vollard's famous 'cave', that the Grand Almanach illustré was composed. Everyone knows that Alfred Jarry wrote the text, that Bonnard was responsible for the illustrations and Claude Terrasse for the music. As for the song, it was by Ambroise Vollard. This is common knowledge, yet no one seems to have noticed that the Grand Almanach illustré was published without the names of the author or of the publisher..."
Using the character of Ubu, a portly symbol of the French state, Bonnard and Jarry here ridiculed the Ministry of Justice for its initial misconception and its belated recognition of the true, profane nature of Parallèlement (1900). In one scene, an as yet blissfully unaware Ubu examines a painting of some "parallel" lines suggesting the geometry book the Imprimerie Nationale assumed Parallèlement to be. The next figure shows the denouement, in which Ubu is literally bowled over by his discovery, in the presence of the artist, of the real nature of Bonnard's erotic masterpiece.
This almanac is often described as the Grand Almanach to distinguish it from another Bonnard-Jarry collaboration, the Petit Almanach du Père Ubu (1899). All copies of the Grand Almanach illustré are now rare according to Bonnard's bibliographer, Antoine Terrasse, who notes that "1000 copies were printed, most of which were destroyed owing to the book's lack of success." This is one of only 25 printed on Hollande, there were also 25 copies on Japon.
Terrasse, Pierre Bonnard Illustrator (New York, 1988) 10 (with nine reproductions). Keller, Schunkung Vollard (Winterthur Kunstmuseum, 1949) 9. Johnson, Ambroise Vollard Editeur (Museum of Modern Art, 1977) 167. Ives [et al.], Pierre Bonnard: The Graphic Art (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1990) p. 162 and figs. 220-221.
Item nr. 170381
Price:
$9,750.00