Description

FIRST COLLECTIVE EDITION in part original, collected and presented by Hubert Damish with a disclaimer by the author.

Copy of the press service (punch) with an autographed signed copy of the first volume :

"to the Doctor and Miss Chatagnon the warm and devoted tribute of Jean Dubuffet."

We enclose 6 letters from Jean Dubuffet addressed to Dr. P.A. Chatagnon:
3 signed typed letters and 3 signed autograph lettersThe Commission has also received a letter from the Minister of Health, concerning their collaboration in the study of the works of patients in his psychiatric department.

"Le Touquet, August 15, 1963
Mr. Doctor Chatagnon
White House Hospital

Dear Doctor,

I thank you very much for your kind reply and I will therefore, on my return to Paris at the beginning of September, take the liberty of getting in touch with you again to ask you for an appointment in order to gather all the information you can give me on Mrs J.T., author of the manuscripts and drawings which are the subject of my study.
Please believe, dear Doctor, in my respectful sentiments...
Jean Dubuffet."

"Paris, October 1, 1963.

Dear Doctor,

I would like to express my thanks for the kind welcome I received from you during my visit on 28 September.
I was extremely interested in the collection of colourful drawings made by your patient Mademoiselle Sima Maryse, which fit so perfectly with our studies on "art brut" and appear to be a particularly characteristic case of the forms of art creation to which we apply ourselves. I hope that you will be willing to help us to document this remarkable case, and perhaps to prepare a monograph for our publications.
I'm about to leave Paris where I'll be back in mid-December. I'll get back in touch with you at that time if you want to allow it.
I also remain very interested in what you told me about the embroideries on falling sheets, made by a lady from Auvergne suffering from a paranoid psychosis and whose name is Madame Bonamour. I would be very happy to see these works on a later visit.
I beg you to believe, dear Doctor, in my most respectful and devoted feelings.
Jean Dubuffet"

"Paris, January 2, 1964.

Dear Doctor,

Now back in Paris, I would be interested, if it can be done without disturbing you, to see the embroidery on scraps of cloth that was once made in your White House department by a lady from Auvergne named Mrs. Bonamour, whom you told me about during my visit last September.
Besides, I would be very happy to see again the colourful drawings of Mille Simone Marye that you showed me and that impressed me a lot. I would also like to ask you if you would agree to include in the Art Brut publications that we are preparing, a monograph on these works of Miss Simone Marye, accompanied by black and colour reproductions of her drawings. I would like this monograph to be written by you and bear your signature, if you would be willing to accept it.
Please believe, dear Doctor, in my respectful sentiments.
Jean Dubuffet"

"Vence, March 9, 1964

Dear Doctor,
I am confused to answer so late to your kind letter of February 4th. I am just about that date having left for Vence, where I have now been for more than a month, busy executing large paintings which absorb me so completely that they leave me no free time, so that my correspondence has remained several times in arrears.
I'm very happy to hear that you've started working on the monograph on Simone Marye.
Your registration as a member of our association was made and ratified by a meeting of our Board of Directors in early February. We are honoured to have you as a member and thank you very much.
I believe that Mrs Bonnamour's work has been photographed, as have many of Simone Marye's drawings. I am therefore giving instructions today to send you proofs of these photographs.
I'll be back in Paris around April 15th. I would like you to come and visit our museum in the rue de Sèvres once; you will find there at any time, even in my absence, someone to welcome you, because Mr. Slavko Kopac is there every morning, and the secretary, Miss Jacqueline Voulez, is there every afternoon. It's only on Saturdays that no one is there.
Please believe, dear Doctor, in my feelings of respectful sympathy. Jean Dubuffet"

"Le Touquet, September 22, 1965

Dear Doctor,
That's good news, and I'm glad to hear it. I know very well from experience how time-consuming small studies of this kind are, and I am very grateful to you for being so kind as to interrupt you from your work to do this. So we're going to be able to do this presentation of Simone Marye's drawings in one of our next booklets, with all the information.
I just spent two months in Le Touquet, where I have a house with a workshop. I'm going back to Paris at the end of the week. If I get back early, I'll call you to arrange a time when I can visit you without disturbing you.
Please believe me, dear Doctor, in my feelings of devoted respect.
Jean Dubuffet"

In response to the sending of the present volumes :

"Dear Doctor
I am very touched by the warm words of your letter regarding my writings and I am very grateful to you for them. The thought that you have read them out loudly strikes me deeply, and the sympathy you have shown me is most precious to me.
Please pass on my respectful remembrance to Madam Sister and believe yourself, dear Doctor, in my most cordially devoted feelings.
Jean Dubuffet"

You can also reach:

• a tapuscript letter signed by Jacqueline Voulet, on the letterhead of the Compagnie de l'Art Brut, concerning the sending of photographs of the embroidery of Mrs Bonamour and the drawings of Simone Marye.
• Dr. Chatagnon's autograph handwritten draft of the thank you letter after the present volumes were sent, 2 pages in-4 blue ink and graphite: "... the letter of thanks to Dr. Chatagnon for his work on the project.Dear Mr. Dubuffet, When I had the pleasure of meeting you about the "Art Brut" productions of Simone Marie, Bonamour etc., I was very pleased to meet you. I had appreciated the great artist that you are, your strong personality, your delicate and generous feelings, your reserve and your will. [...] I was far from suspecting that the original and talented Artist was an authentic humanist, scholar, poet, steeped in philosophy and with a restless and tormented soul, with a fertile imagination and an exquisite sensitivity. [...] It is this personality that allowed us to discover the reading - often aloud - of your original self-biography in these two volumes of witty letters, full of juice and salt, in beautiful language and with a true French taste [...]".

Nice outfit.