French painter, theorist and writer, anarchist and Surrealist, born on 27 October 1913 in Toulouse, died on 29 August 1979 in the same city.
Life
Adrien Dax drew close to the Surrealist group in 1947 and became a member in 1950, remaining until 1969. By February 1949, André Breton already kept in his library a handwritten text by Dax on Malcolm de Chazal, slipped into a copy of Sens-plastique and annotated in his own hand: “Communicated by Adrien, February 1949”.
His name appears on the movement’s collective tracts from the post-war years to the end of the 1960s. He contributed to many reviews: Néon (1949), the Almanach surréaliste du demi-siècle published by La Nef (1950), L’Âge du cinéma (1951), Le Libertaire and La Rue (1952), Médium (1953-1955), Le Surréalisme, même (1956-1959), Bief, La Brèche, L’Archibras (1968-1969), then Coupure (1970). He also took part in Édouard Jaguer’s Phases movement.
In 1960 he signed the Declaration on the Right to Insubordination in the Algerian War, known as the Manifesto of the 121.
The work
Dax was the discreet inventor of two techniques derived from automatism: the “relief print” (impression de relief) and the “interpreted poster” (affiche interprétée). In the 1970s he illustrated Jean Malrieu’s Le Château cathare (1972) and took part in the collective publications of Éditions Maintenant, including Lecture en blanc (1974) and Objets d’identité (1976).
Exhibitions
- “Mostra surrealista”, Milan, 1961
- “Solstice de l’image” (1961) and “La Cinquième Saison” (1962), Galerie Le Ranelagh, Paris
- Phases exhibitions, Buenos Aires (1963) and São Paulo (1964)
- “L’Écart absolu”, International Surrealist Exhibition, Paris, 1965
- “A Phala”, São Paulo, 1967
- Galerie Les Yeux Fertiles: “Surrealist Prelude”, 7 June to 6 July 2024
At the gallery
- Surrealist Prelude 2024