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 Kay Sage   (1898-1963)

  Cassandra (Le Jeu de Marseilles)
  • ink on paper, 1941
  • inscribed Kay Sage and dated 1941 by Andre Breton upper right recto
  • image size 9¼" x 5¼" (23.5 x 13.3 cm.)
  • paper size 13¾" x 10" (35 x 25.4 cm.)
  • Provenance:  Andre Breton, Paris
  • Literature:  Stephen Robeson-Miller, Kay Sage Catalogue Raisonne, Prestel, 2018, no. W.1941.7, pp.396-397, ill.
Kay Sage expert Stephen Robeson-Miller has kindly confirmed that the signature and date in this work are by the hand of Andre Breton.

Yves Tanguy left Europe for the United States in Nov, 1939, one month after the departure of American citizen Kay Sage, his lover of one year. Breton and his wife, Jacqueline Lamba, along with several fellow Surrealists traveled south to Marseilles in Vichy France in hopes of securing exit visas and fleeing France as World War II ravaged Europe. It was there that the Surrealist Tarot card deck, the Jeu de Marseilles, was conceived and created, with participants including Breton, Lamba, Max Ernst, Victor Brauner, Andre Masson, Oscar Dominguez, and Wifredo Lam.

Breton and family finally arrived in New York in June of 1941 where he was met by Sage, Yves Tanguy, and Stanley William Hayter. Sage rented for them their first temporary apartment in Greenwich Village. It was at this time that Sage created her contributions to the Surrealist card deck. Neither her drawings nor those of other post-Marseilles contributors were utilized in later published versions.
Kay Sage - Cassandra (Le Jeu de Marseilles) - 1941 ink on paper enlarge in new window

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