Beautés de 1918. (Op. 4.) Illustré de quatre dessins de Juan Gris by (GRIS) Dermée, Paul

Paris (Éditions de l’Esprit Nouveau), 1919.. (30)pp. 4 illus. after drawings by Gris. 4to. Dec. wraps., repeating the design on the title-page. One of 200 copies on papier bouffant, signed and numbered in pen by Gris and Dermée in the justification, from the limited edition of 216 in all. In a letter to Dermée of September 1918, full of poetic uncertainties (“I’m immersed in a dream about such important work that I think of nothing else. Time and space only exist in my life as ideas or elements of my work”), Gris wrote happily, and whimsically, to accept the commission of these illustrations. “With great pleasure will I give the hand of my daughter (a daughter whom I shall create specially) to your newest-born, always provided that my daughter’s guardian has no objections” (the guardian in this case being his dealer, Léonce Rosenberg). The four vignettes are Cubist still-lifes, a bit reminiscent in format of Braque’s woodcuts for Satie’s “Le Piège de Méduse.” A beautiful copy, very fresh and clean.