[BRETON, André (1896-1966)]

[BRETON, André (1896-1966)]

Death notice
Paris, 1 Oct. [1966], 1 p. in-8° oblongue (14 X 10,5 cm)
Printed card in black ink
Slight angular and right margin creases, of no consequence

ANDRÉ BRETON – SUMMARIZED IN ONE APHORISM

Death notice sent by his family a few hours after his passing, on September 28, 1966

From the Paul Destribats Collection

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“ANDRÉ BRETON
1896-1966
JE CHERCHE L’OR DU TEMPS

Les obsèques auront lieu
le Samedi 1er Octobre
à 10 heures 45
au cimetière des Batignolles”

The expression “Je cherche l’or du temps” was coined by Breton in the autumn of 1924, at the very moment when the Surrealist Manifesto was going to press. It was first published in the new “texte étrange” (Marguerite Bonnet), which appeared in March 1925 under the title Introduction au discours sous le peu de réalité, in the journal Commerce.
With this maxim, Breton illustrates what can be considered the profound mission of poetry: to capture, within a fleeting and fragile reality, a portion of enduring truth capable of resisting time, while revealing a value that transcends the mere contingency of the present. It thus highlights a conception of modernity in which the ephemeral moment intertwines with the timeless.

“Je cherche l’or du temps”: this eternal formula, created in 1924, appeared forty-two years later on his death notice in capital letters, and forty-eight hours later at the center of his tomb in the Batignolles Cemetery.