Born Isidore Goldstein, Isidore Isou was born in Botosani, Romania on January 29, 1925. After the liberation of Paris from Nazi occupation, he moved to the city on August 23, 1945. He soon met fellow Jewish refugee Gabriel Pomerand and together they founded “Lettrism,” a new artistic movement. The first public event of the movement took place on January 8, 1946 at the Sociétés Savantes, where Issou recited his poems. One year later, Gallimard published his “Introduction à une Nouvelle Poésie et une Nouvelle Musique,” which included his “Manifeste de la poésie lettriste.” In total, he would go on to publish more than two hundred books, featuring his “hypergraphic” texts, “metagraphic” images, plays, theoretical texts, polemics, posters, and more. In 1950, the Lettrism group also included Maurice Lemaître, Jean-Louis Brau, Gil J Wolman, and François Dufrêne. Guy Debord joined in 1951. Despite the formation of the new “L’Internationale Lettriste” in 1952, Isou’s group remained active throughout the rest of the decade. He passed away in Paris on July 28, 2007.
www.ftn-books.com has the Blois small portfolio now vailable.
