PARIS.- 2024 celebrates the 100th anniversary of surrealism, in reference to the first publication of the Surrealist Manifesto by André Breton in 1924.

On Wednesday June 5, 2024, PIASA will be auctioning a selection of major Surrealist works from the Geneviève and Jean-Paul Kahn collection.

Assembled over the decades, the collection brings together paintings, works on paper, and sculptures, all selected with the utmost rigor for the intrinsic quality of their composition and their historical importance.

The Geneviève and Jean-Paul Kahn «Mille nuits de rêve» library, dispersed in six auctions over the past five years, has provided surrealist enthusiasts with long-hidden treasures. Jean-Paul Kahn, a forerunner in many of his choices, experienced this
«amour fou», this «trajectoire du rêve» (dream trajectory) with Geneviève, a journey where books, objects, drawings, collages, photography and paintings brought about the great «surrealist revolution», through a cabinet of curiosities featuring Marcel Duchamp, Remedios Varo, Dorothea Tanning, Max Ernst, Oscar Dominguez, Victor Brauner, Eileen Agar and many others. Artworks and art objects in conversation under the feminine gazes of surrealist women, whom both collected very early on. Similarly to the «Mille nuits de rêve», this surrealistic cabinet – long kept from public view – will be offered on June 5, for the pleasure of enthusiasts and according to the owners’ wishes.

Bringing together a large number of international artists from Europe, the United States, Latin America and the Dominican Republic, this collection reflects the singular spirit of a surrealist ensemble with its literary ramifications, from exquisite corpses to objects echoing the very feminine accent dear to Geneviève and Jean-Paul Kahn.

Among the lots presented in this sale, you will discover one of the most iconic images of surrealism, Marcel Duchamp’s famous L.H.O.O.Q. Mona Lisa, an emblematic composition by Dorothea Tanning in praise of movement, a sculpture box by American artist Joseph Cornell, or an extraordinary surrealist drawing by Jackson Pollock.
This collection simultaneously highlights the natural link between the Surrealist movement and American Pop Art, with works by major pop artists: two self-portraits by Andy Warhol, a Roy Lichtenstein hot dog, an emblematic composition by Robert Indiana and a sculpture-object by Claes Oldenburg.