Georges Limbour
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Georges Limbour (Courbevoie, 11 August 1900 — Chiclana de la Frontera, near Cadiz, 17 May 1970)Colin-Pichon, M., Georges Limbour: le songe autobiographique, Lachenal & Ritter, Paris, 1994, pp. 209–219 was a French writer, poet and art critic, and a regent of the Collège de ’Pataphysique.


Biography

Limbour attended school in Le Havre, Dieppe and Géradmer where his father, a captain in the army, was stationed. His mother came from Le Havre, and the town left Limbour with an enduring fascination for the sea.Bianchi-Longoni, L., Limbour dans le Surrealisme, Peter Lang, 1987, pp. 149–166. His childhood friends included
Jean Dubuffet Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet (31 July 1901 – 12 May 1985) was a French Painting, painter and sculpture, sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so-called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what ...
and
Raymond Queneau Raymond Queneau (; 21 February 1903 – 25 October 1976) was a French novelist, poet, critic, editor and co-founder and president of Oulipo ('' Ouvroir de littérature potentielle''), notable for his wit and cynical humour. Biography Queneau wa ...
. Limbour began writing in his teens. In October 1918 he went to Paris to study medicine, later switching to philosophy, obtaining his degree in 1923. In 1920, he signed us as a cadet officer with the army, undergoing military training in the morning and studying for his degree in the afternoons. Fellow cadets included
Roger Vitrac Roger Vitrac (; 17 November 1899 – 22 January 1952) was a French surrealist playwright and poet. Early life Roger Vitrac was born in Pinsac on 17 November 1899, before his family moved to Paris in 1910.:527 As a young man, he was influenced by ...
and
René Crevel René Crevel (; 10 August 1900 – 18 June 1935) was a French writer involved with the surrealist movement. Life Crevel was born in Paris to a family of Parisian bourgeoisie. He had a traumatic religious upbringing. At the age of fourteen, hi ...
, who he got to know along with other writers attached, like Limbour, to the Tour-Maubourg barracks. In 1922 he formed an enduring friendship with the painter André Masson, to whom he had been introduced by Dubuffet. He visited Masson’s study at 45 rue Blomet often, where he met other artists and writers including Juan Miro,
Antonin Artaud Antoine Marie Joseph Paul Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud (; 4 September 1896 – 4 March 1948), was a French writer, poet, dramatist, visual artist, essayist, actor and theatre director. He is widely recognized as a major figure of the E ...
, and
Michel Leiris Julien Michel Leiris (; 20 April 1901 in Paris – 30 September 1990 in Saint-Hilaire, Essonne) was a French surrealist writer and ethnographer. Part of the Surrealist group in Paris, Leiris became a key member of the College of Sociology with G ...
. In 1923 he was introduced to
André Breton André Robert Breton (; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') o ...
by his Tour-Maubourg friends, and subsequently participated in the activities of the Surrealists until his break with Breton in 1929. Before his association with André Breton and the Surrealists, Limbour co-edited, along with Vitrac and Crevel, the avant-garde review ''Aventure'' (1921–22). Later, he assisted with
Georges Bataille Georges Albert Maurice Victor Bataille (; ; 10 September 1897 – 9 July 1962) was a French philosopher and intellectual working in philosophy, literature, sociology, anthropology, and history of art. His writing, which included essays, novels, ...
's journal ''
Documents A document is a writing, written, drawing, drawn, presented, or memorialized representation of thought, often the manifestation of nonfiction, non-fictional, as well as fictional, content. The word originates from the Latin ''Documentum'', w ...
'' (1929–30), and, with a number of other dissident ex-surrealists, contributed to the anti-Breton pamphlet ''
Un Cadavre ''Un Cadavre'' (''A Corpse'') was the name of two separate surrealist pamphlets published in France in October 1924, and January 1930, respectively. Pamphlet of October 18th, 1924 The first pamphlet, arranged largely by André Breton and Louis Ar ...
''. Limbour spent much of his early adult life outside of France. In 1924 he traveled to the Rhine to work as a journalist attached to the French army. On 14 July, from the steps of the Mainz Opera House, he shouted 'down with France', and encouraged the local German population to throw out the French army. This action attracted praise from Breton, but resulted in Limbour being expelled from Germany. Later that year he went to Albania to teach philosophy, then to Egypt in 1926 where he remained until 1928. In 1930 he joined the French Lycée in Warsaw, teaching there until the onset of war made it impossible to stay. In 1938 he was appointed to a teaching position in Parthenay in Western France, but was then mobilized with the outbreak of the war. He took part in some of the early fighting and was demobilized with the armistice in 1940. Later he taught in Dieppe, and then, from 1955, in Paris, at the Lycée Jean-Baptiste-Say. He retired from teaching in 1963. Limbour spent many of his holidays in Spain, a country he loved and where he set two of his novels. He died in a diving accident off the Spanish coast in 1970.


Work

Limbour wrote a number of short stories (collected after his death in two volumes), four novels, a play (first staged in 1954), three opera librettos (only one of which was performed), and poetry. The early stories show the influence of surrealism and 'automatic writing' methods but in the later work, including the novels, Limbour developed a magical and distinctive style. He was greatly admired by his contemporaries, including
Max Jacob Max Jacob (; 12 July 1876 – 5 March 1944) was a French poet, painter, writer, and critic. Life and career After spending his childhood in Quimper, Brittany, he enrolled in the Paris Colonial School, which he left in 1897 for an artistic ca ...
,
Jean Paulhan Jean Paulhan (2 December 1884 – 9 October 1968) was a French writer, literary critic and publisher, director of the literary magazine ''Nouvelle Revue Française'' (NRF) from 1925 to 1940 and from 1946 to 1968. He was a member (Seat 6, 1963–68 ...
,
Jean Cocteau Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (, , ; 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost creatives of the su ...
, Queneau, and Leiris. Limbour was appointed a regent of the College de 'Pataphysique in 1960, with Dubuffet and Queneau among his nominators. Michel Leiris, writing in ''Atoll'' in 1968, described Limbour as: "a great poet in every heart-beat of what he wrote, but a poet without fanfare or vain display". Little of Limbour's work has so far appeared in English. Some of the short stories have been translated, these include: 'The Polar Child' (1922), 'The Lacashire Actor' (1923), 'Glass Eyes' (1924), and 'The Panorama' (1935), 'The Hand of Fatima' (1929), 'The White Dog' (1953), and three 'African Tales' (1968. An essay, 'Aeschylus, Carnival and the Civilised', published in ''Documents'', II.2 (1930) is also available in English translation. From 1944 on Limbour wrote innumerable essays, catalogue introductions and reviews about art, as well as books on Masson and Dubuffet. In 1943 Limbour took the writer and critic Jean Paulhan to the studio of Jean Dubuffet, whose work was then unknown. This meeting was a decisive moment in Dubuffet’s career. Paulhan introduced Dubuffet to the gallery owner René Drouin, and the artist had his first public show the following year.


Bibliography


Poetry

''Soleils bas, eaux-fortes d'André Masson'', Paris, Galerie Simon, 1924


Stories and novels

*''L'Illustre cheval blanc'' (stories), Paris, Gallimard, 1930 *''Les Vanilliers'' (novel), Paris, Gallimard, 1938 (Prix Rencontre, 1938); Paris, L'Imaginaire, Gallimard, 1978 *''La Pie voleuse'' (novel), Paris, Gallimard, 1939; Paris, L'Imaginaire, Gallimard, 1995 remière partie écrite en 1936*''L'Enfant polaire'' (story, written 1921), Paris, Fontaine, 1945 *''Le Bridge de Madame Lyane'' (novel), Paris, Gallimard, 1948 *''Le Calligraphe'' (story), Paris, Galerie Louise Leiris, 1959 *''La Chasse au mérou'' (novel), Paris, Gallimard, 1963 *'' Soleils bas'', suivi de poèmes, de contes et de récits, 1919-1968, (poetry and stories), préface de Michel Leiris, Paris, Poésie/Gallimard, 1972 ncludes L'Enfant polaire, Histoire de famille (1930), the last of the three stories which make up L'Illustre cheval blanc (1930), and Le calligraphe, (1959)*''Contes et récits'', (stories) Paris, Gallimard, 1973, ncludes, L'Acteur du Lancashire ou L'Illustre cheval blanc (1923) and Le Cheval de Venise (1924), two of the three stories which make up L'Illustre cheval blanc, 1930*''Le Carnaval et les civilisés'', préface de Michel Leiris, dessins d'André Masson, Paris, L'Elocoquent, 1986 exts which appeared in revues, 1930-1968)()


Theatre

*''Les Espagnols à Venise'' (opéra-bouffe), in Mélanges Kahnweiler, Stuttgart, Hatje, 1966 (first performed in Grenoble in 1970, music by René Leibowitz) *''Élocoquente'', Le manteau d'Arlequin, Paris, Gallimard, 1967


On painting

*''André Masson et son univers'', en collaboration avec Michel Leiris, Lausanne, Les Trois collines, 1947 *''André Masson dessins'', Collection « Plastique », Paris, Éditions Braun, 1951 *''L'Art brut de Jean Dubuffet'' (Tableau bon levain à vous de cuire la pâte), Paris, Éditions Galerie René Drouin, 1953 *''Préface à André Masson'', Entretiens avec Georges Charbonnier, Paris, Julliard, 1958 *''André Beaudin'', Paris, Verve, 1961 *''Hayter'', Paris, Le Musée de Poche, Éditions Georges Fall, 1962 *''Dans le secret des ateliers'', Paris, L'Elocoquent, 1986 exts which appeared in revues, 1946-1971, sur Masson, Dubuffet, Braque, Elie Lascaux, Giacometti, Germaine Richier, Picasso, Kandinsky, Nicolas de Staël, Ubac, Palazuelo, Tal Coat, Rouvre, Hayter() *''Spectateur des arts'', Écrits sur la peinture 1924-1969 (édition de Martine Colin-Picon et Françoise Nicol), Paris, Le Bruit du Temps, 2013.


References


External links

*Official Limbour website (in French): http://www.georgeslimbour.org/ *https://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1739&context=iowareview - provides a brief overview of Limbour's fiction. * Translation of the story 'The White Dog' by Donald Heiney - https://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1740&context=iowareview *''The Automatic Muse - Surrealist Novels by Desnos, Limbour, Leiris & Peret.'' (Introduction by Terry Hale.)
Atlas Press
1994. *http://www.dedalusbooks.com/our-books/book.php?id=00000114&srch=surrealism+ and http://www.dedalusbooks.com/our-books/book.php?id=00000115&srch=surrealism+2 *Waldberg, Patrick. ''Surrealism.'' Thames and Hudson, 1965 *Breton, Andre. ''Manifestoes of Surrealism.'' (Limbour is referred to extensively in the ''Second Manifesto.'') The University of Michigan Press, 1969. *Limbour, Georges, three tales from the collection ''Soleils bas'' translated into English by Simon Collings, published i
http://fortnightlyreview.co.uk/2018/07/recits-georges-limbour/
2018.
The Long Poem Magazine
issue 21, May 2019, includes a translation by Simon Collings of Limbour's poem 'The Red Coat'.. {{DEFAULTSORT:Limbour, Georges 1920 births 1970 deaths French male writers 20th-century French male writers