TOYEN.

Collage. No place or date [Prague, ca. 1935]. Collage, pencil and gouache highlights on postcard, signed with monogram lower right (8.7 x 13.6 cm); framed with envelope addressed to André Breton mounted behind it. Original collage on postcard, dating from the 1930s, given to André Breton. The envelope with André Breton's address to the journal Medium, J. Schuster's, 17 rue Gramme, Paris XV, is mounted in a trapdoor behind the collage. Obliteration of December 4, 1953. Toyen (1902-1980) had settled permanently in Paris since 1947. The year 1953 was marked by several important events, notably the death of Jindrich Heisler. That year, Toyen exhibited at the L'Étoile scellée gallery at the same time as the monograph devoted to her was published by Sokolova, with texts by André Breton, J. Heisler and Benjamin Péret. At the same time, the surrealist journal Medium, edited by Jean Schuster, was devoting issues to painters: the new series, published between November 1953 and January 1955, includes four issues devoted to Hantaï, Paalen, Svanberg and Lam. An issue on Toyen was planned, but never saw the light of day. No doubt it was with a view to this publication that Toyen, drawing on his archives, sent André Breton, via Jean Schuster, this collage dating from some twenty years earlier.