Régine Raufast

Régine Raufast (died 1946) was a French Surrealist poet and writer, a member of the clandestine group La main à plume during the Nazi occupation of France.[1]

Life

Alongside the poet Laurence Iché and the Czech artist Tita, Raufast was active in La main à plume, writing a poem for its first collective publication.[2]

She had a relationship with Raoul Ubac, and was the model for Ubac's 1939 photograph La Nébuleuse. Her subsequent relationship with Christian Dotremont lasted from April 1941 to March 1943.[3] She was the inspiration for two long poems by Dotremont in 1942, Oleossoonne or the Speculative Moment and The Queen of the Walls.[4]

Raufast committed suicide in 1946. Dotremont wrote a posthumous tribute to her in the Belgian surrealist journal Suractuel.[5]

Work

• 'Image et photographie', in La Conquête du Monde par l'Image, Paris: Éditions de la Main à Plume, 1942.
• 'Der Kubismus und die Gegenwart', in Wort und Tat, No. 2 (September 1946)

References

1. Keith Aspley (2010). "Raufast, Régine". Historical Dictionary of Surrealism. Scarecrow Press. pp. 405–6. ISBN 978-0-8108-5847-3.
2. Penelope Rosemont (2000). Surrealist Women. A&C Black. p. 154. ISBN 978-0-567-17128-3.
3. Patricia Allmer; Hilde van Gelder (2007). Collective Inventions: Surrealism in Belgium. Cornell University Press. p. 223. ISBN 978-90-5867-592-7.
4. Bertrand Schmitt (2019). "Christian Dotremont". In Michael Richardson; Dawn Ades; Krzysztof Fijałkowski; Steven Harris; Georges Sebbag (eds.). The International Encyclopedia of Surrealism. Bloomsbury Visual Arts. pp. 235–8. ISBN 978-1-4742-2648-6.
5. Christian Dotremont, 'Régine Raufast, la reine des murs, est morte', Suractuel, July 1946.