French poet and painter, born on 27 May 1922 in Maisons-Laffitte (Yvelines), died on 3 June 1991 in Avignon.
Life
During the Second World War, Claude Tarnaud discovered Surrealism and jazz, which helped him break free from a stifling mother. He then wrote the Journal du scorpion, a manuscript now lost. In 1946 he co-founded the review La Révolution la nuit with Yves Bonnefoy and Jaroslav Serpan, soon distanced himself from it, and met André Breton. He was then living in Paris with Claudine Merlin, known as Eaudine.
A member of the Surrealist group from 1946 to 1948, close to Victor Brauner and Stanislas Rodanski, he took part in the 1947 International Surrealist Exhibition and in 1948 co-founded the review Néon with Rodanski, Sarane Alexandrian, Jindřich Heisler and Véra Hérold. He left the group the same year, during the Matta-Brauner affair, disagreeing with the expulsion of Roberto Matta.
In 1951 he married Henriette de Champrel, known as Gibbsy, who would illustrate several of his texts, and settled in Geneva as a translator for the UN. His postings then took him to Mogadishu (1953-1959), Addis Ababa, New Delhi and New York, where he lived from 1959 to 1962; there in 1961, with Marcel Duchamp, he organised the exhibition Surrealist Intrusion in the Enchanters’ Domain at the D’Arcy Gallery, and in 1966 he helped bring about the Chicago Surrealist group, around Franklin and Penelope Rosemont. From 1953 to 1966 he took part in Édouard Jaguer’s Phases movement; with François Di Dio he edited the review Positions. He left the UN and in 1969 settled in Salignan, near Apt.
The work
A poet, Tarnaud was also a visual artist and maker of picture-objects. His first book, The Whiteclad Gambler, was self-published in Geneva in 1952. It was followed by, among others, La Forme réfléchie (Le Soleil noir, 1954, preface by Ghérasim Luca), Orpalée (1965, lithographs by Jean-Pierre Vielfaure), Les Cendres de l’eau (1974, drawings by Jacques Lacomblez) and, posthumously, L’Aventure de la Marie-Jeanne ou le Journal indien (2000, drawings by Jorge Camacho). He contributed to the reviews Edda, La Brèche, Phases and Supérieur Inconnu.
Exhibitions and collections
- André Breton archive: manuscript L’Iris tournoyant (16-17 February 1948) and letters from Tarnaud to Breton.
- Donc te voilà nyctalope !, retrospective, Paris, 2009.
- Surrealist Prelude, Galerie Les Yeux Fertiles, 7 June to 6 July 2024.
At the gallery
- Surrealist Prelude 2024