Odpoledne francouzskych surrealistu [Afternoon of French Surrealists]

Praha [Prague]: V. Palásek a Frant. Kraus, 1935. A rare Czech poster, announcing a series of performances in Prague of Czech translations of poetry by the French Surrealists André Breton, Paul Eluard, and Benjamin Péret, with an announcement of a lecture by André Breton in Brno. The typographic poster was designed with empty space to add a pasted-on sheet, the example here promoting André Breton's lecture "What is Surrealism" in Brno on Thursday, April 4, [1935]. The poster design suggests that other lectures could be promoted by changing the paste-on copy (although this is just supposition on the part of your cataloguer).

This poster is printed letterpress on thin brown paper measuring 18-3/4 by 12-7/16 inches with an 8-1/4 by 5-7/8-inch offset lithograph onlay.

Breton, Eluard, and Péret visited Czechoslovakia for two weeks in 1935 at the invitation of Vitezslav Nezval, a founding member of the Czech Surrealists, who had met them in Paris two years earlier. Nezval interpreted Breton's lectures and worked on translations published in the years following their visit.

Very little appears to be known about the staged readings of the French Surrealists promoted with this poster. No mention of it appears in Derek Sayer's Prague, Capital of the Twentieth Century: A Surrealist History, which describes Breton's visit in detail. This rare poster marks a key moment at the beginning of the Czech Surrealist moment and its close connection with the French proponents of the movement.

From the collection of the French bibliophile Paul Destribats. A very good example of a fragile poster. With old folds and small nicks to the edges and a one-inch split at the base of the center fold.