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Aube Elléouët Breton (B.1935)

Elseneur, 1979

Catalogue essay by Blanche Llewellyn

“It’s obvious that I was fed on surrealism from the cradle. But it was natural. It was my environment; I didn’t know any other.” – It’s impossible, given the colossal legacy, to dissociate the destiny of Aube Elléouët from that of her father, André Breton, the so-called “Father of surrealism. Aube, a remarkable artist in her own right, chooses not to dwell on her heritage: “I prefer not to discuss my father, although I adore him!” she stated in a 2013 interview with le Télégramme.

Since the 1970s, Aube Breton Elléouët has been creating collages using postcards, playing cards, and image clippings from books and magazines that she found in garage sales and second-hand bookstores.

These images from the past, sometimes linked to the world of childhood, are repurposed, producing a poetic effect imbued with humor. Her artworks are playful, but they speak also of life, our relationship with the universe, nature, as well as gender, love and human relations. Through her collages, Aube Breton Elléouët creates her own poetic language imbued with romanticism, sometimes revealing the subversive side of her dreams.

Echoing her own situation – being overshadowed by her father, Aube Ellouet enjoys paying tribute to women artists such as Frida Kahlo, with whom she spent a year in 1943, along with her mother Jacqueline Lamba (1910-1993), also a painter and visual artist who, although she achieved some fame, was also outshone by her celebrated husband.

The collage “Elseneur” – (a town and port in Danemark) depicts an unusual – and somewhat enchanting scene – composed of assembled images – featuring a gondola, mountains, butterflies, planes and what seems to be a drifting female corpse – reminiscent of a Victorian death photograph or a Momento mori.

Dating from the late 1970s, this collage demonstrates that Surrealism’s second generation retained the same ability to create striking motifs to rival those of earlier incarnations.

Signed.
Elléouët Breton, Aube

Aube Elléouët Breton (B.1935)

Aube Elléouët-Breton was born in Paris, December 20, 1935. Her mother was Jacqueline Lamba, a painter and her father, André Breton, the writer and founder of Surrealism. In 1943 she stayed for one year with her mother at Frida Kahlo's house in Mexico. Since the early 1970s, Aube Elléouët-Breton devoted more and more time to the art of collage, exhibiting them in France and internationally. Her work is included in private and museum collections, including the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris among others. Even though Aube's collages encompass a surrealist spirit, she developed her own distinct artistic language, often addressing issues such as ecology and feminism in her work.