Book Category: Avant-Garde

The Sheridan Libraries’ collection of materials relating to Dada, one of the most significant avant-garde movements of the twentieth century, is among the finest in the United States. These materials include the first four issues of the journal Dada (1917–9) published in Zurich by Romanian-born Tristan Tzara (1896–63), a seminal figure for the Parisian Dadaist group who went on to publish additional issues in Paris.

While a safe distance away from the carnage of World War I in neutral Switzerland, Tristan Tzara and his Dadaist colleagues used this journal as their literary and artistic mouthpiece to creatively—and cunningly—undermine the values that were bringing the world to the brink of total destruction. The outcome is an unmistakable style that would go on to influence nearly every subsequent avant-garde movement around the world.

Conservation Treatment

All issues need to be stabilized with minor papers repairs and rehoused so they may be used by students, faculty, and researchers.

The Sheridan Libraries’ collection of materials relating to Dada, one of the most significant avant-garde movements of the twentieth century, is among the finest in the United States. These materials include four numbers of 391, the provocative Dada art review edited by artist Francis Picabia (1879-1953).

Published from 1917 to 1924 in Barcelona, New York, Zürich, and Paris in nineteen issues, 391 was modeled after Alfred Stieglitz’s pioneering journal 291. Today the issues are extremely rare.

When Picabia joined the Dadaists in Paris in 1919, he brought his journal with him. In Paris, between the years of 1919 and 1924, he published issues number nine through eighteen of 391 with contributions by such figures as writer Robert Desnos, artists Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, and René Magritte, and composer Erik Satie.

Conservation Treatment

All issues need to be stabilized with minor papers repairs and rehoused so they may be used by students, faculty, and researchers.