'I thought of Crevel, of his sensitivity and his vulnerability. My etching celebrated him with an evocation of the carnal mystery he eulogized. For this work a number of techniques were marshalled, like using a full orchestra for a small music.' —Dorothea Tanning
Dorothea Tanning’s description of Rene Crevel - sensitive and vulnerable – shows an acute awareness of the French surrealist writer’s lifetime of turmoil. Crevel, who wrote Mon corps et moi (My Body and Me) and Les Pieds dans le plat (Putting My Foot in It), had a traumatic religious upbringing, and suffered the loss of his father who committed suicide when Crevel was fourteen. After studying English in Paris, he met André Breton and joined the Surrealist movement, but only a couple of years later he was excluded from the artistic group due to his homosexual tendencies. Diagnosed with tuberculosis as a young man, Crevel followed in his father’s footsteps and committed suicide before he turned thirty-five. His short life was filled with woundings, and this reflected in his literary work which largely focused on his inner struggle with being bisexual.
In 1973 art historian Eddy Batache embarked on a project researching Rene Crevel. Bringing together works from fourteen artists, Batache combined his own texts in homage to the writer and in 1976 completed his project with La Mysticité Charnelle de René Crevel. Batache was one of Francis Bacon’s closest friends in Paris, and so when Batache asked Bacon to contribute to the project he offered his very first etching as the works frontispiece, Portrait of Peter Beard.