Scope and Content of Collection

Letters and ephemera sent to editor Raymond Queneau concerning the avant-garde movement Lettrism, founded by Isidore Isou. A letter, a clipping and the tract "Defense d'Isidore Isou" illustrate Isou's problems with obscenity charges brought against him in 1962. Three letters to Queneau and a copy of a 7 p. letter from Isou to Gaston Gallimard, dated 1962 and 1964, plead for continued support for the movement. Other materials by Isou are a handwritten card (1946), a handwritten cover design for a proposed book "Oeuvres complètes de Isidore Isou" (n.d.), a typescript titled "Domaine artistique integral" (n.d.), and the tract "Vive la retrospective surrealiste!" (1964), which denounces André Breton.

The collection also includes three handwritten letters from Gabriel Pomerand concerning books Queneau sent him during his imprisonment (1949) and his hospitalization (1954), three typed letters from Jacques Spacagna regarding the issue of Bizarre that he and Maurice Lemaître are preparing, and two letters from Lemaître (1962, 1965). Ephemera consist of two announcements "Première manifestation lettriste" (n.d.) and "Le lettrisme" (n.d.), an invitation to a Lemaître event with ink drawings and stapled film strips (n.d.), the program "La poesie et la musique lettristes et aphonistes" (n.d.), and a 4 p. advertisement, with text by Noël Arnaud, for three recordings (1964).

Arrangement note

Arranged in one series, in rough chronological order.