Henri MICHAUX (1899-1984) Untitled, circa 1938 Gouache and Indian ink on paper pasted on cardboard Monogrammed lower right Gouache and India ink on paper mounted on cardboard; signed with the artist's monogram lower right 23,5 x 31,5 cm - 9 1/4 x 12 3/8 in. Provenance Acquired directly from the artist By descent from the current owner This work will be included in the catalogue raisonné being prepared by Micheline Phankim, Rainer Michael Mason and Franck Leibovici under no. hm8009. Although it is on white paper, this gouache and Indian ink by Henri Michaux, produced around 1938, is contemporary with the famous "fonds noirs" series, which grew out of his trip to Ecuador and depicts the "apparitions" and "magic" created by "the night". The tree motif also foreshadows the drawings of 1942, published by the NRF under the title Arbres des tropiques, following his trip to Brazil. Mainly recognised as a poet, Michaux's graphic work took on a new breadth at the end of the 1930s, as evidenced by his exhibitions at the Galerie de la Pléiade and the Galerie de Pierre Lœb, and the publication in 1939 by GLM of Peintures, which combined paintings and poems for the first time. In this gouache and Indian ink, monogrammed lower right, we find the same principle of organic and suggestive imagery, where the forms seem to emerge from the support in a dynamic of progressive revelation. Comparable to certain works from the same period held in major public collections, notably the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the MNAM / Centre Pompidou, this rare gouache was probably photographed before the war, or just after, by the Montparnasse photographer Marc Vaux. Vaux's collection is held by the Bibliothèque Kandinsky at the Centre Pompidou, and includes a glass plate of this work. A rare example of work from this period and previously unseen on the market, it provides precious evidence of Henri Michaux's graphic exploration on the eve of the Second World War.