Description

FIRST EDITION.
AUTOGRAPH SENT SIGNED to Roland Penrose illustrated with a original full-page drawing signed in Indian ink.

"to Roland de
Paul Eluard
friendly remembrance
1945 Paul"

British art critic, painter, photographer and poet Roland Penrose (1900 - 1984) was one of the leading figures of Surrealism in England. After a stay in Paris from 1922 to 1935, where he befriended the Surrealist group, Penrose became one of the founders and driving forces behind the Surrealist group in London in 1936. Together with Gascoyne, he organised theLondon Exhibitionbecame secretary and then treasurer of the London Gallery et, along with Brunius and Mesens, is in charge of the London Bulletin and co-directs Idolatry and Confusion. He presented numerous exhibitions, notably of Picasso, on whom he also published a major monograph.
Eluard, Penrose and Picasso were particularly close, and sometimes found themselves in Mougins for long summer periods immortalized in 1937 by the Man Ray camera in A summer at La Garoupe.
When Éluard died, Penrose bought a large part of the poet's collection, which he describes in his autobiography, 80 years of Surrealism. 

Accomplished drawings by Paul Éluard are rare, and the subject of the book and its provenance make this copy all the more delightful.