SENGHOR (Léopold Sédar) - SOULAGES (Pierre). - Lot 196

SENGHOR (Léopold Sédar) - SOULAGES (Pierre). The Creative Power of Pierre Soulages. [Nice], 1974. — Folio, 434 x 315: (2 ff.), plain black cover. Loose-leaf. First edition of the text by Léopold Sédar Senghor. This publication “was produced on the occasion of the first exhibition of Pierre Soulages’s works in Africa, held in Dakar at the Musée Dynamique in 1974.” It features a full-page, unsigned silkscreen print by Pierre SOULAGES, based on a painting dated September 21, 1967. In his essay, Senghor highlights the significance of this retrospective (1947–1973), which features paintings, engravings, lithographs, and a tapestry by Soulages. For him, Soulages embodies one of the greatest painters of his time, a master of pure painting, free from all imitation. He emphasizes that the artist constantly deepens his artistic universe, infinitely varying his subject matter to invent a new reality. His art, abstract and otherworldly, reveals a creative power that Senghor compares to African art, the fruit of the collective imagination. It is this universal and visionary dimension that, in his view, fully justified Soulages’s place at the Musée Dynamique in Dakar. This booklet was printed in an edition of 215 numbered copies on Arches vellum, signed by the author and the artist on the colophon (no. 32). However, this print run appears to be greatly overestimated, as it is extremely rare to find a copy on the market today. The text sheet and the silkscreen print are in perfect condition, but the cover has a few marginal tears, with no missing material.