Pablo PICASSO (1881-1973) - Max JACOB (1876-1944) - Lot 10

Pablo PICASSO (1881-1973) - Max JACOB (1876-1944) Chronicles of heroic times. [Paris]: Broder, [1956]. - In-8, 24.2 x 18 cm: (2 blank ff.), 126 pp. (4 last blank ff.), 3 plates, illustrated cover. Leaves, filled cover, publisher's illustrated folder and slipcase. Posthumous first edition, illustrated with 30 compositions by Pablo PICASSO, including 3 original lithographs (cover, slipcase and frontispiece, the first two in color), 3 original off-text drypoints and 24 woodcut drawings in the text by Georges Aubert. "Max Jacob began writing his "Chronique des Temps Héroïques" in September 1936 and completed the work the following year. "I worked on it for 12 months", he wrote. This sentence indicates more than a date: it situates the importance of this text in the author's thinking. Max Jacob always refused to write an extended memoir. Only for this testimony did he depart from his self-imposed rule. "I am not a historian. I'm only a gossip to entertain you, I'm looking with you for the outlines of an era. I speak only of what I have seen, felt, experienced, because I am a poet and poets speak only of what they feel." [...] May this Chronicle serve, through its lyrical truth, the memory of those it honors and of the man who brought them back to life" (publication prospectus). Edition strictly limited to 170 copies on Montval laid paper, signed by Picasso at the justification. This one, number 69, is enriched with the publication prospectus and a separate edition of the lithograph for the slipcase. Spine of folder and slipcase soiled. Some scattered foxing.