André Malraux, "Editor of the Extraordinary"
- Heritage exhibition from April 19 to May 19, 2018
André Malraux entered the literary scene as a publisher and dealer in rare books. An erudite bibliophile with a sure taste and insatiable curiosity, he produced, from the early 1920s, illustrated books in limited editions for his friends' publishing houses. Then, on his return from Indochina in 1926, he created his own Éditions d'art, "À la Sphère" then "Aux Aldes", where he published remarkable editions of works by Paul Valéry, André Gide, Jean Giraudoux and Paul Morand, illustrated by his friends Galanis and Alexeieff.
André Malraux, mid-1930s. Photo Roger Parry - Gallimard.
Gaston Gallimard appreciated the work of this promising writer; he hired him on October 15, 1928 as artistic director and welcomed him to his reading committee. For a short decade, he accomplished wonders there, publishing "extraordinary editions" that were landmarks in the history of books in the 20th century, through their modernity and refinement. After the war, he focused his publishing activity on books on art, in line with his reflection on the meaning of artistic creation. With the complicity of his friends Roger Parry and Albert Beuret, and with the full confidence of Claude Gallimard, he published a series of magnificent photographic albums devoted to his own essays and created the prestigious collection "L'Univers des formes" (1960-1997), a universal history of all the arts.
André Malraux was a man of the book, in search of the perfect editorial form – which was, in his eyes, inseparable from the very life of ideas, their formulation and their reception. He was one of those who gave meaning to the profession of publisher, driven by the hope of “making people aware of the greatness or dignity that they are unaware of in themselves”.
© Francesca Montovani - Gallimard
The exhibition at the Galerie Gallimard will retrace this little-known aspect of André Malraux's cultural commitment, through numerous rare or unpublished books and documents from the Gallimard Archives, the Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques-Doucet and private collections.
On the occasion of this exhibition, the album André Gide, André Malraux. L'Amitié à l'œuvre (1922-1951) is published by Gallimard, retracing the relationship between the two writers through some 200 documents and including all of their unpublished correspondence, between literature and political commitment.
