FRANCIS PICABIA — Dits, Éric Losfeld / Le Terrain Vague, Paris, 1960

Published by Éric Losfeld / Le Terrain Vague, Paris, 1960. Aphorisms gathered by Poupard-Lieussou. Collection Le Second Degré, no. 3.

Issued seven years after Picabia’s death, Dits gathers his aphorisms into a compact book whose structure resists the stability normally promised by a collected text. Statements are isolated, portable and open to reversal. Humour, insult, contradiction and declaration remain beside one another without being resolved into a consistent position.

Losfeld issued the book within Le Second Degré, a series described on the wrapper through the recurring phrase De l’humour à la terreur. Picabia appears alongside Jacques Sternberg, Roland Topor and other writers working across satire, erotic publishing and the literary avant-garde. The setting matters: this is not a museum’s reconstruction of Dada but a small independent publisher returning Picabia to an active countercultural readership.

The cover reproduces Picabia’s mechanomorphic portrait Marie. A human subject is displaced by propeller, belt, dial and diagram — an image that first circulated within the artist’s dismantling of conventional portraiture and here becomes the identifying device of a posthumous literary publication. Inside, photographs connect Picabia to Marcel Duchamp, Béatrice Wood and the New York Dada circle. Biography, document and aphorism are placed into the same sequence.

The colophon records a deluxe issue of twenty-five numbered copies on Madagascar paper. This is the trade edition: the version intended to move beyond the limited issue and enter ordinary distribution.

13.5 × 18.6 cm. 28 pages. Staple-bound softcover with folding wrappers; black-and-white photographs; text in French. Éric Losfeld / Le Terrain Vague, Paris, 1960. Collection Le Second Degré, no. 3. Condition: good vintage condition. General age toning, light foxing and handling wear to the wrappers, with minor rubbing, edge wear and corner softening. Light wear around the staples. Internally complete and generally clean.

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