Julien Michel
Leiris (April
20, 1901 in Paris – September
30, 1990 in
Saint-Hilaire, Essonne)
was a Frenchsurrealistwriter and ethnographer.
Biography
Michel Leiris obtained his baccalauréat in
philosophy in 1918 and after a brief attempt at studying chemistry, he
developed a strong interest in jazz and poetry. Between 1921 and 1924, Leiris
met a number of important figures such as Max Jacob, Georges Henri Rivière, Jean
Dubuffet, Robert Despos, Georges
Bataille and the artist André
Masson, who soon became his mentor. Through Masson, Leiris became a member
of the Surrealistmovement, contributed to La Révolution surréaliste, published Simulacre(1925), and Le Point Cardinal (1927), and wrote a surrealist novel Aurora(1927-28; first published in 1946). In 1926, he married Louise Godon, the
step-daughter of Picasso's dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler and traveled to
Egypt and Greece.
Following a fall out with André
Breton in 1929, he joined Bataille’s team as a sub-editor for Documents, to which he also regularly
contributed articles such as “Notes on Two Microcosmic Figures of the 14th and
15th Centuries” (1929, issue 1), “In Connection with the ‘Musée des
Sorciers" (1929, issue 2), "Civilisation" (1929, issue 4), “The
‘Caput Mortuum’ or the Alchemist’s Wife” (1930, issue 8), and on artists such
as Giacometti,Miró, Picasso, and the
16th
[