THE LOST SCULPTURES OF JEAN-PIERRE DUPREY: TERRESTRIAL WRECKS AND TREASURES
par Bruno Pompili
We had believed it was true, and that Jean-Pierre Duprey's sculptures were definitively lost.
A myth, or rather a story to which it was easy to believe because of the tragic circumstances of Duprey's death and the "Baudelairian bad luck" that often accompanied his life, had circulated about the loss of his plastic works. Fortunately it was nothing of the sort, but an "affair of terrestrial wrecks..." had begun.
October 1959
After Duprey's death, his wife Jacqueline, née Sénard, gave no precise information about the destiny of the sculptures that belonged to her, nor about the location where they would be preserved.
It was believed, it was said – difficult to identify the author of this information – that she had occulted them, perhaps stored them in a cave, or that they were lost forever. (Cf. Jean-Christophe Bailly, Jean-Pierre Duprey, Seghers, Paris 1973, p. 70; François Di Dio, Biographie, in J.-P. Duprey, Œuvres complètes, Chr. Bourgois éd., Paris 1990, p. 18.)
Six years after Jean-Pierre's death, Jacqueline succumbed ↑ to a serious illness, and from then on the mystery seemed definitive.
October 2007
An exhibition takes place at the Galerie Martel-Greiner with all (?) the recovered works.
It is Jean-Michel Goutier who gives me this overwhelming news by telephone (November 8, 2007): passing by the Boulevard Raspail he happened to fall upon the exhibition, which moreover had just ended. Neither he nor his friends had known anything about it, while one might have expected that persons linked, in various capacities, to the memory of surrealism, or of Duprey himself, would naturally be informed.
This exhibition immediately seemed surprising to me. I try at least to obtain the catalogue, but living far from Paris I apparently didn't search well.
However, I managed to procure it through a particular buy-sell site, at a somewhat considerable price, but I would have paid double to obtain it.
I cannot judge by this catalogue the real content of the exhibition; the images are captivating for anyone who would have admired and loved Duprey, despite the fact that the whole leaves doubts about the concrete presence of some objects, about some document without photographic credit (but these are details).
"Terrestrial Wrecks...?"
An epistolary exchange with Jean-Pierre's younger brother (Mr. François Duprey) brings a bit of "black" light to the affair: personal denomination, which seems to me conform to the situation, and of which I summarize the history through some fragments of letters, that Mr. Duprey authorizes me to cite.
"... at his death [of Jean-Pierre] Jacqueline his widow proposed to me the sharing — I refused; I didn't have the heart for it and told her to continue taking care of them [...]. Unfortunately she died 6 years later and at her death no work of my brother was found at her home. The rumor circulated in the surrealist group that she had walled everything up in a cave... [...] I wasn't far from believing it.
It was nothing of the sort. A part of the works (most of the cement sculptures) was deposited with a friend of Jacqueline's in Déville (suburb of Rouen) in a garden – gradually destroyed by the weather, the sculptures "to make room" were thrown into the Seine. [...]
The other part, essentially steel sculptures, or steel + cement was deposited awaiting better days by Jacqueline in René Hanesse's forge, metalworker-locksmith in Pantin. René Hanesse was an old friend of Jacqueline [B.P., Note: It is indeed in this forge and following Master Hanesse's advice that Jean-Pierre Duprey quickly learned to work forged and welded iron].
[...] After Jacqueline's death, René Hanesse forgot the 47 sculptures in a corner of the workshop. They moreover almost got sent to the dump! They were discovered by a client who came to have welding done on the chassis of an old collector's car and acquired by him, then exhibited in September 2007 at the Galerie Martel-Greiner [...].
To avoid the dispersion by mercenary hands of these works [...] I filed a complaint on November 3, 2008 with the Prosecutor of the Angers Court on the grounds of fraudulent capture of abandoned works (the Poets who prevail in the Civil Code call them Terrestrial Wrecks or Treasures if their value is recognized.) In case of discovery of Terrestrial Wreck or Treasure the discoverer must make a declaration [...] and return the totality of the works to the legitimate owner [...]. The complaint was accepted in February 2009 and the investigation entrusted to the center for combating cultural property trafficking. I have, to increase the chances of success, offered the totality of recoverable pieces to the Ministry of Culture so that they be deposited in a state museum.
[...] the sale of the catalogue is impossible currently due to the judicial complaint I filed!"
Current Situation
Mr. François Duprey has just explained to me by telephone the very complicated and very slow judicial itinerary where it is difficult to glimpse a satisfactory solution to guarantee the common enjoyment of his brother's works.
At the moment, the affair is entrusted to the Director of the National Museum of Modern Art (Centre Georges Pompidou).
Conclusion
All of Mr. F. Duprey's recent steps are the subject of a rather complex dossier that he has just transmitted to me and which could be brought to the knowledge of "Mélusine's' friends, especially if there exists a possibility of soliciting the Powers to intervene to save Terrestrial Wrecks (I suppose that Jean-Pierre Duprey would have chosen this expression), and to claim the putting in common of a treasure.
Bruno Pompili has a particular interest in Jean-Pierre Duprey, not only by reader admiration: he is the translator into Italian of a very large part of his poetic work, also author of some essays on this artist and poet; moreover he contributed to the complete staging in Italian language of La Forêt sacrilège, in 1993.
To Mr. François Di Dio – who asked him why the mysterious name of the character Ueline had been translated by Comina (which struck him, and seemed incomprehensible to him) – he was proud to answer that Ueline is nothing other than the second part of the name Jacq/ueline, hence the correspondence Gia/comina: translation work involves these small and happy discoveries.