Plate from Le Surréalisme en 1947
Marcel Jean
French, 1900–1993
1947
An etching and aquatint plate from Marcel Jean’s illustrated book Le Surréalisme en 1947, intended to conjure a surreal, dreamlike tableau of floating, dislocated shapes in a small, intimate format.
A circular, densely stippled black field swirls toward a lighter center while ragged white silhouettes—like fragments of figures or seaweed—press at the margins, making the page read as a tiny, uncanny window into drifting space.
Made for a postwar Surrealist publication, the plate demonstrates how print techniques and the artist’s associative imagery pushed the book into a site for automatism, collage-like surprise, and poetic visual thinking.
Medium
Etching and aquatint from an illustrated book with eighteen lithographs, four etchings (two with aquatint), two woodcuts, one photogravure, and one ready-made object
Dimensions
plate (diameter): 6 5/16" (16 cm); page: 9 7/16 × 8" (24 × 20.3 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Henry Church Fund
Accession
343.1947.13
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
