Christie's | "Une Bibliothèque des avant-gardes : Paul Destribats" | Paris, 3, 4, 5 July

PARIS

Une Bibliothèque des avant-gardes : Paul Destribats (1926-2017)
First part : from 1910 to 1945

Paris – The 3, 4 and 5 July 2019

Paris – Christie’s’ Books department is pleased to announce the sale of the collection: Paul Destribats, Bibliothèque des avant-gardes in partnership with the experts Jean-Baptiste de Proyartand Claude Oterelo.

This remarkable collection of books and manuscripts was jealously preserved for sixty years – only a few researchers and close friends had access to it. Some books were regularly lent to institutions. The Bibliothèque des avant-gardes comprises 6,000 books, leaflets and manifestos and ephemera from the 20th century. The first three sales, constituting the part 1, include more than 600 lots dating from the 1910s to 1945. They will take place on the 3, 4 and 5 July at Christie’s Paris. The entire collection will be sold at Christie’s in three sessions, spread over a year, from July 2019 to July 2020.

Jean-Baptiste de Proyart, expert of the sale: “Paul Destribats created his collection as an avant-garde’s anthology. It offers multiple collections which would be impossible to reconstitute nowadays.
This monumental dispersion over a year in a series of catalogues is, for the world of books and culture, a sensational event, comparable to some of the greatest 19th century’s books sales.”

Paul Destribats attended high school in Vendôme (Loir-et-Cher) and left for Paris on his bicycle in 1944. In Vendôme in 1943, he discovered Surrealism in a religious school through Georges Hugnet’sLa Petite Anthologie du Surréalisme. He also discovered Lautréamont, Rimbaud and especially André Breton, whose texts never left him. In 1947, he briefly got involved in a political party which he left shortly afterwards. He preferred to go abroad and to become a precious stone broker: South America, United States, Europe…the great life.

Please see the full press release.