MESSAGE FROM NOWHERE MESSAGE DE NULLE PART.

Mesens, E.L.T.
MESSAGE FROM NOWHERE MESSAGE DE NULLE PART. COLLECTION OF POETRY, DRAWINGS AND CRITICISMS EDITED BY E.L.T. MESENS
London: London Gallery Editions, 1944
27 x 21cm, 38pp. Original wrappers. First edition of this anthology of surrealist writings augmented by a frontispiece by the editor. Mesens had arrived in London to initiate much of the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition and quickly was appointed as Director of the surrealist London Gallery by Roland Penrose who funded the venture. As a result the surrealists of London had a direct link with the original Parisian surrealist group through Mesens albeit the rather opinionated new Director was oft to bring the Belgium aspect of surrealism to the fore in his selections of exhibitions for the gallery and in publications. Message from Nowhere was published at a time when the Gallery's Bulletin had temporarily ceased publication and this tract contains texts in both English and French (Mesens' friend Brunius helped with the French) and was intended to keep surrealism's ideology in the public consciousness during the war years. By 1944 Mesens and Penrose were battling against del Renzio a new and aggressive convert to surrealism for domination of the English Surrealist Group and no doubt the publication of this pamphlet was in part intended to reassert Mesens leadership as the most authentic of the British Group's members. Texts by Breton, Jarry, Foster, Simon Watson Taylor, Feyyad Fergar, Patrick Waldberg, Serge Ninn, ELT Mesens, Brunius and Penrose, as well as some illustrations by the English artists, Edith Rimmington, John Banting and Robert Baxter are found. Very good in like wrappers. Scarce.