Edition: HC - This is part of a suite which consisted of 25 unsigned lithographs (unsigned), 5 lithographs, signed in an edition of 50 and two Lithographs (including ours) signed in white pencil in an edition of just 15 reserved for the “Premiers exemplars du livre”

Size: Sheet: 279 x 750 mms (10 9/16” x 29 ⅝”)

Published by: Maeght Editeur, Paris, France

Printed by: Arte Adrien Maeght, Paris

References:

Maeght (Volume V) Number 985

Patrick Cramer: “Joan Miro: The Illustrated books” : 188

Note: Both the Spanish artist Joan Miro and the French poet Robert Desnos were prominent figures in the Surrealist movement in Paris, where they met in 1925. Miro had long planned to illustrate a book by Desnos, but the project was delayed by the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and subsequently the Second World War, in which Desnos was an active member of the French Resistance. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1944 and sent to several concentration camps including Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Desnos survived the war only to die of typhoid a few weeks after the liberation of the camp where he was held. Nearly thirty years later, Desnos' widow approached Miro with the idea of illustrating his works again. In the end they settled on Pénalités de l'enfer ou les nouvelle Hébrides [The Penalties of Hell or The New Hebrides], Desnos' first work in prose, written in Morocco in 1922. Miro made a total of 27 Lithographs to illustrate this splendid book.