DELARBRE, Léon.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Dora, Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen: Croquis clandestins. First edition, first printing, of an important contemporary artistic response to the Holocaust, reproducing artwork secretly produced by Delarbre in various Nazi concentration camps.Delarbre (1889-1974) worked as an artist and curator of the Museum of Fine Arts in Belfort. He joined the resistance, which disguised itself as an association of friends of the museum. A Gestapo informer infiltrated the resistance network and Delarbra was arrested in 1944 and sent to Auschwitz, then Buchenwald.In the camps he stole whatever paper he could use for drawing. His pictures include kapos, guards, prisoners, and the camp buildings. "Delarbra worked in secret and at night; his work was a bitter indictment of the torture and death that surrounded him. He often exchanged sketches for soup or for more paper and pencil snippets. In January 1945 Delarbra was deported to Dora- Mittelbau and in April to Bergen-Belsen, where he was finally liberated" (Blatter, p. 245). He carried his drawings back to Paris, where they were acquired almost immediately by the state for the newly formed Musée Nationale d'Art Moderne, and published here by Michel de Romilly. Delarbre's works are permanently on display at the Musée de la Résistance in Besançon.

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