Nadja « Ma main écrit ce que tu penses... »
Letters and drawings from Nadja to André Breton,
1926 - 1927
Exhibition from September 4 to October 3, 2026
An exhibition presented by Éditions Gallimard and created with the exceptional participation of the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques-Doucet.
The exhibition
A hundred years ago, André Breton met Nadja by chance in the streets of Paris. Their brief affair, from October 4 to 13, 1926, gave rise to the surrealist prose masterpiece, Nadja, published in 1928. An exhilarating testament to "convulsive beauty," it is also the unsettling, at times discomforting, account of unrequited love.
Paris, Bibliothèque Jacques-Doucet
But the mythical Nadja was also a real woman, whose tragic existence was long overlooked until her rediscovery in the 1980s. This young woman, whose real name was Léona Delcourt, a single mother, was then pursuing a precarious career as a dancer and actress, or even a bar hostess, in Paris. Coinciding with their publication by Gallimard, this exhibition presents an exceptional selection of letters sent by Nadja to André Breton, as well as drawings she made for him. They were written in the weeks following their meeting and in the distress of her failure. They are heartbreaking in their lucidity as much as in their poetic lyricism, where written images on the crest already foreshadow the abyss: "Man of stone, understand me!"... "It's my brain I'm stretching"...
On February 25, 1927, Léona wrote her last letter to Breton. On March 21, she was institutionalized after a delirious crisis. She ended her days in the asylum of Bailleul, near Lille, on January 15, 1941. Beyond the surrealist narrative and literary history, there is this story – a life cut in two, of which the last expression has been preserved.
Nadja's farewell letter to André Breton [February 25, 1927]. Paris, Bibliothèque Jacques-Doucet
On February 25, 1927, Léona wrote her last letter to Breton. On March 21, she was institutionalized after a delirious crisis. She ended her days in the asylum of Bailleul, near Lille, on January 15, 1941. Beyond the surrealist narrative and literary history, there is this story – a life cut in two, of which the last expression has been preserved.
Curatorship:
Olivier Wagner (Bibliothèque nationale de France)
Alban Cerisier (Éditions Gallimard)
The publications
NADJA
Letters to André Breton
Followed by other texts and a selection of drawings.
Edited by Olivier Wagner.
176 pages, hardcover
Collection blanche, 22 €
Deluxe limited edition in slipcase
From the original edition of this work, eighty numbered copies from 1 to 80 were printed with distinct covers and slipcases.
200€
