Maquette for Une Etoile de Craie

This drawing on two superimposed sheets is a study for one of sixteen color lithographs Masson created to illustrate Patrick Waldberg's "Une etoile de craie" (A Chalk Star; Au Pont des Arts and Galerie Lucie Weill, Paris, 1973), the second volume of a picaresque trilogy set in Paris. Waldberg was an American poet associated with the Surrealist movement in France. The two other volumes of the book were illustrated by Max Ernst and Joan Miro. In the present drawing Masson adapted the crowded imagery of his earlier Massacre series to the animation of the Halles food market. A few recognizable motifs--fish, vegetable, and figures carrying meat--emerge from the lively line drawing.