Czech Surrealism

Autosexualismus a psycherotismus [Autosexualism and psycho-eroticism].

Brouk, Bohuslav.

Prague: Edice surrealismu, 1935. Octavo. Original printed wrappers; 177 pp. From the library of Karel Teige, with his pencil signature to title. Wrappers and typographic design by Karel Teige. Very good.

First edition of this work by Czech psychoanalyst, philosopher, art theoretician, and writer Bohuslav Brouk, one of the first promoters of Freud’s work in Czechoslovakia. He was a close friend of Karel Teige and a co-founder of the Czech Surrealist Group in 1934. Considered one of the most original minds of the Czech avant-garde, he was also seen as its enfant terrible. Brouk’s postscript for Štyrský’s Emily Comes to Me in a Dream (1933), a defense of erotic literature, revealed his great interest in sexual freedom, individual creativity, and modern artistic tendencies. His research in the early 1930s focused on topics such as masturbation, sexology, and fetishes, and his works were often censored. With a trenchant wit and rhetorical talent, he set out to destroy what he saw as everyday myths that make a meaningless existence bearable: ethics, work, sport, and marriage, among others. After the war, he was an outstanding public critic of communist ideology and fled the country after the 1948 coup. Outside the Czech Republic, KVK and OCLC show copies at Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Yale, Harvard, and Toronto.

Book ID: P5036

Price: $350.00