For once, it's the human pulse that needs to be taken, and what better way to do that than through the contact and inspiration of one of the freshest and most inspired works yet?
André Breton, Preface to Derrière son Double, Paris, Le Soleil noir, 1950.
In 2022, around forty paper works by Jean-Pierre Duprey were rediscovered in the Daniel Cordier collection acquired by Galerie Christophe Gaillard(1). Never exhibited before, twenty of these works are now unveiled, along with two iconic sculptures from the research of the «prince of the realms of Doubles,» as André Breton dubbed him in 1950. Jean-Pierre Duprey, who committed suicide at the age of 29, was a poet, painter, and sculptor. Noticed at a very young age by André Breton, he is a mythical and cursed figure of Surrealism, whom we are pleased to reintroduce to the contemporary public today.
The exact number of drawings, paintings, and sculptures created by Jean-Pierre Duprey is not precisely known. At auction houses, their number is extremely limited, and only a few passionate collectors might provide more information. As for critical literature, it is rather sparse regarding his visual work. To understand the trajectory of this rare artist, one must turn to his poetic writings.
Born in 1930(2) in Rouen to a bourgeois family, Jean-Pierre Duprey had a difficult childhood, disrupted by illness and traumatized by the violence of World War II. Often bedridden, he remained reclusive in a dreamlike and literary world. In adolescence, he recovered his health and was then described as a turbulent student. He discovered the poetry of Arthur Rimbaud and decided to «be nothing but a poet.»
At eighteen, he moved to Paris, where he lived in great poverty. At the beginning of 1949, he sent the manuscript of Derrière son double to André Breton at the bookshop-galerie La Dragonne, where Surrealists gathered after the war. Breton received it enthusiastically and prefaced the edition. He was a fervent supporter of his work with the Surrealist group, of which Duprey became a member the following year.
Duprey is part of the lineage of poets from the Grand Jeu, such as Daumal and Gilbert-Lecomte, as well as Artaud and Bataille. His poems were published in the Surrealist journal Néon and mainly by the editions of Soleil noir, a publishing house strongly influenced by Surrealism (later by Christian Bourgois and then Gallimard). His books were illustrated by Jacques Hérold, Max Ernst, Jorge Camacho, Matta, Jean-Jacques Lebel, and Toyen.
In 1951, Jean-Pierre Duprey decided to abandon poetry to focus on sculpture. He began an apprenticeship in the workshop of master blacksmith René Hanesse. He quickly created a large number of wrought iron and welded sculptures and later started making cement reliefs. He also began painting and drawing. With his wife Jacqueline Sénard, he continued his discreet involvement with the Surrealist group.
In 1954, Jean-Pierre Duprey worked day and night at the forge. He became interested in the work of Julio González and met César. His first exhibition of sculptures and paintings opened in Paris at the gallery À L’Etoile Scellée, under the artistic direction of André Breton.
The following year, Duprey returned to writing. He joined the Phases movement, initiated by poet and art critic Édouard Jaguer, who was also close to Daniel Cordier. In the spring of 1956, the Furstenberg gallery organized another solo exhibition of his sculptures. Jean-Pierre Duprey finally experienced some financial stability. He rented a large studio on rue du Maine and exhibited with Phases at the Galerie Kleber in Paris and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (1957). He participated in the Salon de la Jeune Sculpture and exhibited at the Galerie Saint-Augustin alongside Cardenas, Chavignier, Guino, and Hiquily (1958).
In 1959, Jean-Pierre Duprey went through a severe crisis due to intense conflicts with Jacqueline. Haunted by monstrous and obsessive visions, he was also deeply disturbed by the Algerian War. He fully returned to poetry.
In early June 1959, Duprey committed an act of provocation that further fueled his poetic legend: he urinated on the Eternal Flame of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe. The poet did not seem to be seeking scandal like his Surrealist comrades; he had informed no witnesses who might have amplified the impact of his gesture. Duprey was arrested, beaten, imprisoned, and then confined to a psychiatric hospital until the end of July.
During the final months of his life, Jean-Pierre Duprey devoted himself entirely to writing La Fin et la Manière, which expressed profound despair. On October 2, he sealed a large envelope containing his manuscript, without any comment. After asking his wife to take it to the post office to send it to André Breton, he hanged himself from a beam in his studio.
“Jean-Pierre Duprey sculpted claw-beings, the bas-reliefs of an underground world coursed by tremors”, wrote Alain Jouffroy about his sculptures(3). Inspired by Surrealist research, particularly close to that of Roberto Matta and Wifredo Lam, Jean-Pierre Duprey’s visual work remains little known. One of the keys to interpretation is certainly the provenance of this nearly unknown set of works on paper that we are presenting this summer at the gallery: it connects Duprey’s work to the genealogy of artists loved and supported by Daniel Cordier.
The forty rediscovered drawings seem to have been selected for an exhibition planned with the collaboration of Édouard Jaguer. Although the project was aborted and the exhibition never took place at the galerie Cordier, the selection of these works reveals the coherence of the collection, oriented towards an interior, organic, and painful world, and reflects the eye of its creator, who notably organized the 1959 International Exhibition of Surrealism, in which Jean-Pierre Duprey was involved.
Another key is certainly the reading of his poetry, from which, as writer Jean-Christophe Bailly suggests, the “shattering of time seems thinkable ”(4).
Armance Léger
This exhibition was selected for the « Paris Surréaliste » program, conceived by the Comité des Galeries d’Art, the Centre Pompidou, and the Association Atelier André Breton, on the occasion of the centenary of the publication of the first Manifesto of Surrealism.
Jean-Pierre Duprey (1930-1959, FR)
Major Publications: Derrière son Double, Paris, Le Soleil noir, 1950; La Fin et la Manière, Paris, Le Soleil noir, 1965; La Forêt sacrilège, Paris, Le Soleil noir, 1970.
Solo Exhibitions: [Paintings and Sculptures], À L’Etoile Scellée, Paris, 1954;
Jean-Pierre Duprey: Sculptures, Galerie Furstenberg, Paris, 1956; Jean-Pierre Duprey, 1930-1959, Galerie Martel-Greiner, Paris, 2007.
Group Exhibitions: Phases de l’art contemporain, Galerie Creuze, 1955; [Phases] Galerie Kleber, Paris, 1957; Phasen, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1957; Salon de la Jeune Sculpture, 1958; Five Young Sculptors of the New Paris School, Galerie Saint-Augustin, Paris, 1958.
(1) Daniel Cordier (1920-2020) left an exceptional legacy: the uniqueness of his intellectual journey and the immense collection he amassed over the years shaped the history of art in the second half of the 20th century. After his death, Sotheby’s organized two public auctions of his collection, and in 2022, the Galerie Christophe Gaillard successfully undertook the ambitious project of acquiring what remained of it—over 2,000 works.
(2) Bibliography based on the Œuvres complètes de J.-P. Duprey (Paris, Poésie/Gallimard, 2015).
(3) Alain Jouffroy, Lettre rouge, Préface à La Fin et la Manière, Paris, Le Soleil noir, 1965.
(4) Jean-Pierre Duprey par Jean-Christophe Bailly, Paris, Poètes d’aujourd’hui, Seghers, 1973.
