Mur, mondes : L'atelier d'André Breton

In 2003, the Musée National d'Art Moderne acquired a collection that is unique in the world: part of André Breton's collection (18961966) displayed on one of the walls of his studio at 42 rue Fontaine in Paris, where the poet and founder of Surrealism lived and led this decisive artistic and literary movement of the 20th century for over forty years.

The objects on the ‘Breton Wall’ come from a variety of cultures and geographical areas, including Oceania, the Americas, European folk art and modern art (including remarkable works by Douanier Rousseau, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Francis Picabia, Valentine Hugo and Jean Degottex).

This book, published to coincide with the Centenary of Surrealism in 2024, gives full scope to this exceptional world object, a veritable museum within the museum. For the first time, international experts and scientific specialists have examined, in the form of a catalogue raisonné, all the objects that make up the Wall and the poet's desk. Lastly, a more speculative side aims to consider questions that are at once historical, anthropological and museum-related, and that are truly contemporary, while making a decisive contribution to this unprecedented aspect of Surrealism.