sims reed
TOYEN
January 2026
Jindřich Štyrský & Vitězslav Nezval
Židovský Hřbitov. (The Jewish Cemetery) Prague. Odeon / Jan Fromek. 1928
Toyen’s copy of her friend Vitezlav Nezval’s verse illustrated by Jindřich Štyrský and designed by Karel Teige.
small folio (303 × 244 mm). [24 leaves; pp. 31].
Initial blank with Nezval’s signature and Nezval’s signed presentation, half-title with extensive signed manuscript quotation by Štyrský, leaf with original lithograph by Štyrský as frontispiece verso, printed title, leaf with dedication to Štyrský and Nezval’s verse illustrated with five further original full-page lithographs by Štyrský, final leaf with justification, all of the original lithographs are signed and dated ‘1928’ by Štyrský in pencil; printed text and illustration recto only throughout with mise en page and typography by Karel Teige. Contemporary Czech vellum-backed stiff black card boards, gilt tile to spine, t.e.g., original publisher’s orange printed paper wrappers with titles to front cover and spine in grey / green by Karel Teige preserved.
This extraordinary copy of ‘Židovský Hřbitov’ unites the leading lights of the Czech artistic avant-garde: the poet Nezval with his signed presentation, the artist Štyrský who has signed all of the original lithographs and inscribed the book with a long quote from de Quincey, the designer and theorist Teige who was responsible for the typography and mise en page and, of course, Toyen herself, to whom the work is presented. All were members of the group ‘Devětsil’ and Toyen and Štyrský had developed the credo of ‘Artificialism’ in Paris in 1927, their response to Surrealism; the illustrations by Štyrský for ‘Židovský Hřbitov’ belong to his pre-Surrealist Artificialist oeuvre.
From the edition limited to 220 numbered copies on Hollande Van Gelder; this copy signed by Nezval to the initial blank and numbered to the justification in ink; also with Nezvalʼs presentation to the initial blank beneath his signature, Štyrskýʼs extensive and allusive manuscript quotation from de Quincey to the half-title and with all the original lithographs signed and dated ‘1928’ in pencil by Štyrský.
Nezvalʼs presentation is in black ink to the initial blank beneath his signature: ‘Drahé Mance tuto knížku, kterou jsme dělali s Jindrou / vzpomínajíce na ni a smutni, protože se nevrátila / Její Sláva / V Praze 4. XII. 1928’.
Štyrskýʼs extensive quotation in Czech – taken from Thomas de Quincey’s ‘Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow’ in ‘Suspiria De Profundis: Being a Sequel to the
‘Confessions of an English Opium-Eaterʼʼ – is in black ink to the half-title. A transcription of the manuscript is available on request.
All of the manuscript in the present copy is dated from within a very few days: Nezvalʼs signature to an initial blank features the date ‘30.xi.1928’ (presumably close to the date of publication / issue) while his presentation to Toyen is dated ‘4.xii.1928’; Štyrský’s quotation is dated ‘5. prosince 1928’. In June 1928, Toyen travelled to Paris alone (most often she travelled with Štyrský) and only returned to Prague in January 1929; Nezval’s presentation refers to this absence directly.
Toyen (1903–1980) was born Marie Čermínovà before adopting the androgynous mononym in 1923. Before the Czech Surrealist group (founded in 1934) which included Toyen, Štyrský, Teige and Nezval, there was ‘Devětsil’. Founded in the early 1920s, ‘Devětsil’ was a major force of the European avant-garde and included among many others the quartet exemplified in this copy of ‘Židovský Hřbitov’. Composed of Nezval’s epic eponymous poem, itself a forerunner of the poet’s Surrealist phase – it was included in his second Surrealist collection ‘Praha s prsty deště’ (Prague with Fingers of Rain) of 1936 – and Štyrský’s six superbly evocative original lithographs. Here Štyrský’s lithographs, almost photographic in effect and evoking rayograms or rayographs, are all signed and dated in pencil. Štyrský’s original lithographs prefigure his illustrations for ‘Les Chants de Maldoror’ of 1929 and the Surrealist work of the 1930s. Undertaken after he and Toyen had spent time in Paris in the mid-1920s, these extraordinary abstractions and the verse they accompany underscore the ‘Artificialist’ credo the pair espoused: ‘Artificialism is the assimilation of the painter and the poet’ (Štyrský / Toyen, 1926). The typography and mise en page by Karel Teige bring unity to the text and illustration: the unpunctuated lines of verse and the interspersed lithographs are all printed recto only, giving both the attention of the reader that they deserve
above: (no. 1)
Židovský Hřbitov, 1928
and underlining their interplay. The inscribed leaves –with Nezval’s and Štyrský’s contributions discrete – also conform to this system and all are enclosed within the vivid orange wrappers with Teige’s beautiful lettering.
‘Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow’ forms a part – as noted by Štyrský in his manuscript quotation – of Thomas de Quincey’s extraordinary ‘Suspirira de Produndis’, itself considered by de Quincey to be the sequel to his ‘Confessions of an English Opium-Eater’. Portions of ‘Suspiria de Profundis’ (including ‘Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow’ were published in Blackwood’s Magazine in 1845 but a larger part was not published until after de Quincey’s death. Lauded by Baudelaire who translated ‘Suspiria de Profundis’ into French, de Quincey’s prose poem was admired too by the Surrealists and Breton included him in his ‘Anthologie de l’Humour Noir’ (1940). ‘Suspiria de Profundis’ was first translated into Czech in the early twentieth century but we have been unable to trace the source for Štyrský’s quotation (the most likely edition would be the 1927 edition featuring illustration by Josef Capek, a fellow member of ‘Devětsil’ but differences make it clear that this was not the source used). Intriguingly, Štyrský’s quotation features three blank spaces, as if for a Surrealist game, each with a green crayon line inviting the reader to fill in the blanks. The blanks have been duly filled, appropriately with ‘Mater Tenebrarum’, ‘nebývají’ and ‘Boha’ in another hand and with a different ink; it seems likely given the presentation that the additions are by Toyen herself.
‘Vitězslav Nezval, one of the greatest (but also most controversial) Czech poets, lived in a country whose history was rich in reversals and paradoxical changes, but also a country where poetry enjoyed extraordinary interest ... Nezval was one of those exceptional creative persons for whom everything they encounter turns into poetry ... That period [the end of the 1920s and beginning of the ~
1930s] (from which his poems about Prague date) may be regarded as the peak period of his creativity. Nezval had in him that which characterises a genius – the need to forever seek and find something new, a need further enhanced by the atmosphere of his day, which regarded novelty, freshness and rebellion against any tradition as its highest value ... ʼ — ivan klima
‘The third and last part of the dreams of an opium-eater has a lamentable title, which, however, is well justified, ‘Suspiria de profundis’. In one of these visions appeared three unforgettable figures, mysteriously terrible like the Grecian ‘Moires’ and the ‘Mothers’ of the second ‘Faust’. These are the followers of Levana, the austere goddess who takes up the new-born babe and perfects it by sorrow. As there were three Graces, three Fates, three Furies, three Muses in the primitive ages, so there were three goddesses of sorrow; they are our Notre-Dame des Tristesses. The eldest of the three sisters is called Mater lacrymarum, or
above: Židovský Hřbitov, front wrapper by Teige.
Our Lady of Tears; the second Mater suspiriorum, Our Lady of Sighs; the third and youngest, Mater tenebrarum, Our Lady of Darkness, the most redoubtable of all, and of whom the strongest cannot dream without a secret terror. These mournful spectres do not speak the language of mortals; they weep, they sigh, and make terrible gestures in the shadows. Thus they express their unknown sorrows, their nameless anguish, the suggestions of solitary despair, all that there is of suffering, bitterness, and sorrow in the depths of the human soul. Man ought to take warning from these initiators: ‘Thus will he see things that ought not to be seen, sights which are abominable, and unspeakable secrets; thus will he read the ancient truths, the sad, great, and terrible truths.” — théophile gautier
‘Židovský Hřbitov’ is rare on the market with only a few examples appearing in auction records. In institutional terms too the book is rare and we can locate less than a dozen examples: a single copy in the UK (at the British Library), a single copy in France (at the Bibliothèque Nationale), five copies in the US (at the NYPL, the Getty, Indiana, McGill and Yale) and two copies in the Czech Republic (Research Library Olomouc and the Czech National Library). £40,000
See ‘Prague with Fingers of Rain’, Ewald Oser’s translation of Nezval’s ‘Praha s prsty deště’, Tarset, Northumberland, 2009; see ‘Charles Baudelaire, His Life’, Guy Thorne’s translation of Théophile Gautier's ‘Charles Baudelaire, Sa Vie ... &c.’, London, 1915.
above and right: (no. 1) Židovský Hřbitov, 1928
above: (no. 1)
Židovský Hřbitov, 1928
Toyen with Karel Teige & Jindřich Heisler
Střelnice. Cyklus dvanácti kreseb 1939–1940
(The Shooting Gallery. A Cycle of Twelve Drawings)
Prague. Fr. Borový. 1946
Mesensʼ presentation copy of Toyenʼs rare series of drawings provoked by war and its horrors.
oblong folio. (286 × 416 mm). pp. 8 + 12 plates. Leaf with title in bistre and black and with Toyen’s presentation (see right), two leaves with Teige’s introductory essay ‘Střelnice’ in triple columns, leaf with Heisler’s poem ‘S duverou’ recto and justification verso and 12 monochrome lithographs by Toyen each signed and dated in the plate; sheet size: 280 × 410 mm. Original publisher’s café crème cloth-backed printed boards with titles and shooting target vignette in black to front cover, pale orange pastedowns and endpapers.
From the edition limited to 200 copies. Toyen’s presentation is in blue ink to the title: ‘à E. L. T. Mesens / Toyen / 10.viii.1946’.
Undertaken at the outset of the Second World War at a time that the Czech Surrealist Group had gone underground, Toyen’s twelve drawings depict a no mans land, the wasteland of the aftermath of war and the psychic devastation caused by the Nazis. The iconography is of the loss of innocence, decapitation, physical and psychic damage to children, the effects on nature and on the earth itself. The sequence is powerful and, like the companion images of ‘Schovej se válko!’, demonstrates an engagement to the theme of war and its effects that is at least equal to that of Goya, Dix or Picasso and perhaps, because more subtle, even greater. The drawings are accompanied by a poem by Jindřich Heisler, the Surrealist poet who replaced Štyrský as Toyen’s artistic partner. Heisler who was jewish spent the duration of the war hiding in Toyen’s bathroom and the pair fled to Paris in 1946 shortly after ‘Střelnice’ was published. A second edition with additional material was published in Paris by Editions Maintenant in 1973 as ‘Tir’.
Edouard Léon Théodore Mesens was the organiser of the 1936 London International Surrealist Exhibition at which Toyen exhibited; her paintings ‘Prometheus’ and ‘Voice of the Forest’ were taken to France by Breton and Eluard
after their exhibition in the first Czech Surrealist exhibition in 1935. Toyen and Mesens were both participants at the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme in 1947 held at the Galerie Maeght. Mesens later wrote an essay for the catalogue of Toyenʼs exhibition ‘Les Sept Epées Hors du Fourreau’ at Galerie Furstenberg in Paris.
‘The landscapes of The Shooting Gallery reveal a universe conventionally attributed to that of children. A little girl, toys, small animals. But a closer look allows us to see that this childhood world is crumbling, as the children or dolls are cracked, and the animals decapitated, their heads as bloodless trophies ... These scenes ... represent vast empty spaces under open skies. Ploughed fields or plains as far as the eye can see, which are haunted as if after a blow, a sudden curse that has accelerated their decay. With their austerity and neglected toys, it is not violence that ~
above: Střelnice. Cyklus dvanácti kreseb 1939–1940, original boards.
above: (no. 2)
Střelnice. Cyklus dvanácti kreseb 1939–1940, (1946)
is represented, but its effects: many objects are chipped, traversed by fissures, broken or incomplete. They are no less threatening than if they could, by contagion, reach and fracture those who look at and approach them. The void between the objects emphasizes the tension and the impression of a diffuse threat.’ — fabrice hergott
Additional blindstamp detail to the foot of the rear board suggests that the book was available as a hardcover, ‘Váz[aný].’ for 150 crowns (‘Kčs’), or as a softcover, ‘Brož[ovaná].’ for 125 crowns (‘Kčs’).
‘Střelnice’ is scarce with only a handful of copies sold at auction in the last 50 years. In institutional terms too the work is rare with copies located at the Czech National Library, the British Library, Berlin’s Staatsbibliothek and the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto; in the US we trace copies at MoMA, The Getty, Yale, Stanford, Harvard, Emory and Northwestern as well as The Art Institute of Chicago and the Philadelphia Art Museum.
See Fabrice Hergott’s ‘Toyen and the War Years’ in ‘The Dreaming Rebel: Toyen 1902–1980’, Prague, 2021; see Barbara Bartunkova’s essay ‘Surrealism Against the War: The Shooting Gallery and Hide, War! by the Czech Artist Toyen’, MoMA, 2019.
£9,500
above: (no. 2)
Střelnice. Cyklus dvanácti kreseb 1939–1940, (1946)
Toyen & Jindřich Heisler
Schovej se válko! Cyklus devíti Kreseb 1944 (Hide War! Cycle of nine drawings. 1944)
Prague. Fr. Borový. 1946
Mesensʼ presentation copy of the first edition of Toyenʼs scoriating series of Surrealist war drawings.
large folio
(438 × 324 mm). [Bifolia + 9 leaves of plates].
Leaf with title and Toyen’s presentation, leaf with Heisler’s poem recto and justification verso and nine leaves with lithographs by Toyen recto, each signed and dated in the plate and numbered 1–9 verso in sepia ink; sheet size: 305 × 390 mm. Loose as issued in original publisher’s yellow clothbacked patterned printed board portfolio with inner silk pocket and title ‘Toyen’ and ‘2’ in black to front board.
Toyen’s presentation is in blue ink on the title: ‘à E. L. T. Mesens / très cordialement / Toyen / 7. / 12. 1946’; Heisler too has signed the work, in black ink at the conclusion of his poem.
Although the justification details 1,000 copies, given the quality of the paper (a very good, smooth wove paper) and the extreme rarity of the series (see below) it seems unlikely that anything like that number were issued; it seems more plausible that roughly 200 copies – as with ‘Střelnice’ – were actually published although given the turbulence of the period the question must be posed as to how many copies survive. The portfolio, as for her previous series ‘Střelnice’, was published by Fr. Borový in Prague while the plates were printed by V. Neubert and Sons.
Toyen, together with Jindřich Štyrský, Vitězslav Nezval and Karel Teige, was a founder of the Prague Surrealist group in 1934. The striking scenes of absence, dislocation and decay presented here were completed as drawings in 1944 (they all bear the date ‘44’) and were published first in this edition in Prague in 1946. Drawing on Toyen’s experiences under the German occupation of Czechoslovakia the powerful images depict the landscape of a dehumanised world, degraded and with life absented, populated only with the excarnated remains of animals. Toyen’s powerful imagery is matched by that in Heisler’s poem, the title is taken
from the ‘Poésies’ of the Comte de Lautréamont, which presents a comparable world of decay and degradation and arouses in the reader a matching sense of isolation, horror and disgust. A second edition was published in Paris with Heisler’s poem in French, issued after the pair had fled Prague.
‘These images [i.e. those of ‘Schovej se válko!’] seem to have arisen from the imagination of the author of ‘The Songs of Maldoror’ of which Toyen was an avid reader ... Toyen’s series is probably her most profoundly prophetic work. A series of landscapes where death is everywhere, peaceful and as if detached from the things and beings represented with great clarity, as if illuminated by strong artificial lighting. The drawing of a cat skeleton walking on smoking bottles would perhaps be less strange if that
skeleton was not severed in the middle, if it was not entirely parallel to the plane of the drawing, if the ground was not ploughed by the wind or sea, and if it was not echoed by a few stones, assembled like a broken rock in the foreground. In these vast empty spaces, war itself seems to have fled to give way to the void and death. In one of the drawings, an armless human rib cage is surrounded by swarms of moths, while in another a group of quails are gathered around the remains of a moose ... If in this last great cycle of those years, the body and the perpetrators have disappeared, what remains are skeletons and bones, cages and bars, straying animals. By virtue of this inversion of values that is so particular to Toyen, her drawings represent remnants in a barren environment where a different kind of life takes place, while the remains, the mutilated skeletons, seem unable to die completely.’ — fabrice hergott
This first Czech edition is very rare indeed: we locate two copies in institutions, at the Czech National Library and at The Getty; in addition André Breton owned a presentation copy (the date of presentation matches that of the present example) sold as lot 1591 in the sale of Breton’s library at Calmels Cohen in 2003.
See Fabrice Hergott’s ‘Toyen and the War Years’ in ‘The Dreaming Rebel: Toyen 1902–1980’, Prague, 2021; see Barbora Bartunkova’s essay ‘Surrealism Against the War: The Shooting Gallery and Hide, War! by the Czech Artist Toyen’, MoMA, 2019.
£15,000
Toyen & André Breton
La Lampe dans lʼHorloge.
Avec une Lithographie Originale de Toyen
Paris. Editions Robert Marin. 1948
André Bretonʼ copy, entirely uncut and unopened, with proofs of his text and an additional version of Toyenʼ s original lithograph.
square 8vo (Wrapper size: 168 × 140 mm; sheet size (max.): 198 × 234 mm). [36 unnumbered leaves + inserted leaf of glossy paper with reproduction photograph; pp. 71, (i), (i)]. Half-title with original monochrome lithograph by Toyen verso as frontispiece, title with justification and copyright verso, section title and Breton’s text, monochrome reproduction photograph of Breton by Elisa Breton (‘Dans le parc du Château de la Coste’ and Breton’s ‘Allocution’ (see right), final leaf with achevé d’imprimer; also included, inserted loose, is an alternative version of Toyen’s original lithograph printed in magenta. Original publisher’s green printed wrappers –the wrapper and the sheets uncut – monochrome reproduction photograph to front cover with title in black and author and publisher in white, loose in additional publisher’s white printed jacket –also uncut – with titles to front cover in black.
From the edition limited to 250 numbered copies on vélin d’Arches with Toyen’s original lithograph; a further 2,000 copies on vélin satiné were also issued together with ‘quelques exemplaires de presse’.
Although the justification indicates a figure of 350 copies for the édition de tête, the numbering of the remaining 2,000 copies on vélin satiné, i.e. from 251–2,250, makes it clear that the copies on vélin d’Arches were limited to 250 copies.
The final section of text, Breton’s ‘allocution’, is printed entirely in italic. The text is headed ‘Allocution /
Prononcée le 30 avril 1948 / à la première réunion publique / de / Front Humain’ and it is this ‘allocution’ which is present in proof format. The pagination matches that for the published version and the text appears to be identical. The pages are annotated throughout in red and blue crayon and appear to feature additional pagination in manuscript. It may be that these proof pages represent the preparation of the text for a new edition.
The lithograph by Toyen is in 2 states: one printed in burgundy and the other in black. There are also slight differences to the composition.
£4,500
above: (no. 4) La
Lampe dans l'Horloge, 1948
Toyen & Elie-Charles Flamand
À Un Oiseau de Houille Perché sur la Plus Haute
Branche de Feu. Dessins de Toyen
Lyon. Les Ecrivains Réunis / Armand Henneuse. 1957
Mesensʼ copy of Flamandʼs verse illustrated by Toyen with a presentation from the poet.
small folio. (315 × 235 mm).
[4 bifolia: 8 unnumbered leaves]. Presentation in white ink (see right) to front wrapper verso, leaf with title, verso with dedication ‘pour andrée’, leaf with opening quotation recto and illustration by Toyen verso and Flamand’s verse in 5 sections (dated ‘Lyon-Paris, juin 1953’ at the conclusion), each with an illustration by Toyen (5 in total), final leaf with achevé d’imprimer and justification recto. Original publisher’s matt black wrappers stitched as issued, titles in relief to front cover.
£1,250
From the edition limited to 120 numbered copies, with this one of 100 on lama bleu.
Flamand’s long presentation to E. L. T. Mesens is in white ink to the front wrapper verso: ‘À E.L.T. Mesens / Pour l’intarissable source de clartés qu’ont / fait jaillir, au plus profond de mon / coeur, son amitié comme sa poésie / En souvenir de nos tardives promenades / dans les environs de la rue Daunou / au cours desquelles il délie pour moi / les noeuds de la nuit. / Avec ma fidèle affection / Elie-Charles Flamand’.
Also included, inserted loose, is the folded prospectus, a sheet of blue printed card (folded: 140 × 105 mm; unfolded: 140 × 210 mm) with title, an illustration by Toyen and details of the edition with the additional note by Flamand tin black ink: ‘Les exemplaires de tête comporteront une pointe-sèche de TOYEN ’.
above: Publication announcement card
Sims Reed Rare Books January 2026
Text by Rupert Halliwell
Photography by Yana Dzhakupova
Catalogue design by Juliet Ramsden
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