[Erni (Hans)] - Lot 111

[Erni (Hans)] Ɵ Longus. Daphnis et Chloé. André Gonin, Lausanne, 1950. 90 original sanguine lithographs by Hans Erni (35 x 27 cm), publisher's slipcase. The unique copy announced on the label, containing all 90 original drawings for the lithographs. 180 copies of this edition were printed on vellum pur fil, including the present "unique" copy, entirely hand-illustrated by Hans Erni and accompanied by a suite of lithographs, plus 12 copies with some original drawings and a suite on chine, 137 numbered copies, and 30 copies hors commerce, all signed by the artist and publisher. Like this one, almost all Hans Erni's illustrated books were published by André Gonin. The 90 original drawings for the lithographs are in sanguine charcoal, both inside and outside the text. The suite was printed in olive green on chine. The receipt includes an original self-portrait of the artist as Daphnis. The copy is nominative for Grégoire Salmanowitz, former director and son of the founder of Société Générale de Surveilllance (SGS). Only 16 of Hans Erni's 92 books have a single first copy containing all the original drawings for the illustrations (all between 1949 and 1970), the present work being the one with the largest number. Hans Erni (1909-2015) is one of the major Swiss artists of the 20th century. He now has his own museum in Lucerne. After studying in Paris at the Académie Julian, he was influenced in the 1930s by the abstraction of Mondrian and Kandinsky, and in 1937 joined the Abstraction-Création group. He then developed a personal style in which graphics played an important role, contributing to numerous architectural and industrial decoration projects for various institutions, such as the United Nations. Provenance: Grégoire Salmanowitz.