RICHTER, HANS. (1888-1976). German-American Dada painter, graphic artist, avant-garde film producer and art historian. Programs, Booklets, Flyers and ephemera mostly related to Hans Richter’s film career in the 1940s and 50s, including published articles written by him. Richter’s journalist friend Léo Sauvage (1913-1988), who promoted Richter’s productions via articles in various publications, accumulated this archive.

Hans Richter, born in Berlin, Germany, became one of the principal figures of avant-garde art in the 1910s and 1920s. As an art historian and pioneer of Surrealism and Dadaism (sometimes called an art movement but more accurately an anti-art movement), he was a major influence on artists in many disciplines. He is now best known for his groundbreaking surrealistic films Dreams That Money Can Buy (1947) and 8x8: A Chess Sonata in Eight Movements (1957). Richter immigrated to New York City in 1940 at age 52, and in 1943 became a professor and the director of the Institute of Film Techniques at New York’s City College, a position he held for 13 years. In 1956, Richter turned to teaching documentary filmmaking, and in 1962, he retired and moved to Locarno, Switzerland.

Dreams That Money Can Buy (1947) was the very first feature-length avant-garde American film. The story involves seven dreams offered for sale by Joe, a poor young poet with a rich imagination. Each dream episode is shaped by a visual artist (Max Ernst, Fernand Léger, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Alexander Calder and Richter) and a composer (Darius Milhaud, John Cage, Paul Bowles, David Diamond, John Latouche and Louis Applebaum).

8×8: A Chess Sonata in 8 Movements (1957) was a feature-length American film directed by Richter in collaboration with Marcel Duchamp and Jean Cocteau, and played exclusively by non-actors: poets, painters, composers and architects, including Max Ernst, Dorothea Tanning, Alexander Calder, Jean Arp, Richard Huelsenbeck, Yves Tanguy, Jacqueline Matisse, and 5-time U.S. chess champion Larry Evans.

For 25 years, Léo Sauvage, the New York foreign correspondent for the Paris daily newspaper Le Figaro, reported under the byline “New York: Léo Sauvage” to French readers on U.S. news, political and cultural events, reviewed plays and interviewed celebrities in all fields. He was also the author of nine books, the best-known of which are The Oswald Affair (1966), about the JFK assassination, and L’Affaire Lumière (1985), about Georges Méliès and the origins of Cinema.

1. Printed Invitation Card to a cocktail party for Dreams That Money Can Buy (c. 1947), at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Reis in New York City. Printed on one side. N.p. N.d. 5¼”x3¼”. Invitation to a cocktail party in New York City, to meet Hans Richter, Marcel Duchamp, Alexander Calder, John Cage and others who contributed to Richter’s film Dreams That Money Can Buy. Bernard J. Reis (1895-1978) was an accountant and an art collector. Reis and his wife Rebecca built an art collection in their home, developing friendships with dealer and collector Peggy Guggenheim (who co-produced Dreams That Money Can Buy), and artists such as Marc Chagall, George Grosz and Mark Rothko, and frequently held art-related events in their home. Regarding the East 68th St. location, following is a translated extract from an article by Léo Sauvage on the controversial Dreams, titled “With Hans Richter, Cinema has transferred its avant-garde to NY.” Sauvage writes, “I asked Hans Richter, for Servir, what he himself thought of his film and the attack directed against him from France. He began by filling our glasses, because this happened during a reception given in his honor in a mansion on 68th Street, at the home of a well-known art lover here. Then he answered me with an anecdote: ‘One day, a young delivery man came to bring my laundry to my apartment. He stopped in front of the paintings hanging on the wall, and began to question me on abstract art. We chatted for over an hour. Let’s just say that it was for this delivery man that I made my film.”

2. One-of-a-kind, charming, stapled booklet, handmade by Hans Richter, featuring Dreams. 8pp. N.p. N.d. 5½”x7”. Titled by Richter on the front page in pencil, “‘Vogue’ April 25 46”, and sent to Léo Sauvage. Richter was obviously pleased to see an article in Vogue magazine on his upcoming film Dreams That Money Can Buy. He made a reduced-size black-and-white copy and fashioned it into a stapled booklet, using for the covers, stationery from Art of This Century Films, the company created by co-producers Peggy Guggenheim and Kenneth Macpherson to finance Dreams.

3. Promotional Booklet for The Minotaur (1948). 8pp. 8vo. Describes the production, cast & crew of the unfinished project. In 1948 Richter wrote a script based on the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, part of the “Narcissus” episode in his film Dreams. Theseus, a heroic young prince, risks his life to slay the powerful minotaur, half-man, half-bull, and save others from being sacrificed to the monster. In 1953 he expanded it into a new project titled The Minotaur, but it could not acquire funding and was never completed.

In a conversation published in Cleve Gray’s Richter on Richter (1971), Richter referred to this project: “In 1953–54 I wrote a scenario for Minotaur, a film I never made, but it is a major work as far as I am concerned. It is autobiographical… The scenario started really from the same desire as the last episode of Dreams: the Labyrinth as an expression of the unforeseen ways in life you had to take, unforeseen obstacles you had to overcome… It is the story of a man who is Everyman, but who becomes a hero when he does not suppress the voice of the innocents calling for help. That’s the essence. And in telling the story, I remember as a boy protecting the weak ones in school, and it is, in retrospect, also concerned with the Hitler times. This incredible feeling of loneliness but still being forced to do something for one’s co-human beings and not being able to do anything… You can’t tell stories without telling stories you have lived through. I should have made this film. That I couldn’t do it is just one of those paradoxical, inhuman things that happen.”

4. Three Original Programs for Dreams That Money Can Buy (1947). First Editions. 8vo. 24pp. (12pp. intentionally printed half-size). Cover illustration by Max Ernst. The original program for this classic Surrealist film, written, produced and directed by Hans Richter. Contains articles, scene descriptions and photographs of the cast and crew. Richter’s collaborators on Dreams included many of the best-known personalities from the art and music worlds of the 1940s, including Marcel Duchamp, Fernand Léger, Max Ernst, Alexander Calder, Man Ray, Darius Milhaud, John Cage, Paul Bowles, John Latouche, Julien Levy, Jack Bittner, Dorothy Griffith, Libby Holman and Josh White.

5. Promotional Duchamp brochure for 8x8. 2pp. 4”x10½”. With a printed drawing by Marcel Duchamp on the recto, and a unique chess puzzle on the recto, whereby the solution can be seen if you “Look through from other side against light.”

6. Promotional Cocteau brochure for 8x8. 2pp. 9”x6¼”. With photos of Jean Cocteau on the recto and Sybil Hall on the verso.

7. Invitation Flyer to the first private preview of Hans Richter’s New Surrealist Film Poem, 8x8: A Chess Sonata in 8 Movements. 3pp. 4to. 7.7”x10”. 8x8: A Chess Sonata had its first showing on March 7th, 1957 in the auditorium of the Museum of Modern Art, and was introduced by Shelley Winters, Bosley Crowther, Salvador Dali and Hans Richter.

8. First Program for the March 15, 1957 public premiere of 8x8: A Chess Sonata in 8 Movements. 3pp. 7 ¼”x12”. Program handed out to the audience at the first public showing of 8x8.

9. Two printed articles by Hans Richter: “Eight Free Improvisations on the Game of Chess” and “The Film as an Original Art Form.”

10. Léo Sauvage’s copy of the typescript of his article on Dreams That Money Can Buy and the Henri Langlois controversy. 4pp. 4to. In French, titled “With Hans Richter, Cinema has transferred its avant-garde to New York.”

11. Léo Sauvage’s copy of the typescript of his article on making Dreams That Money Can Buy. 2pp. 4to. In French, titled “Six artists had seven ideas - the eighth was to make a movie out of them.”

12. Assorted Articles, Gallery Cards, Press Releases and Clippings on Hans Richter.

In overall fine condition.