Our gouache was used for the lithograph designed to adorn the book of “Maximes” by Pierre Lecuire (1922-2013). Lecuire, a French poet, critic and publisher, saw the book as the culmination of the poem.

He met Nicolas de Stäel in Paris in March 1945. Their friendship, nurtured by numerous letters, was fruitful: the painter collaborated on the design of several of Pierre Lecuire's books; Nicolas de Staël in 1953 Ballets-Minute in 1954, les Maximes in 1955, and finally L'Art qui vient à l'avant (1948-1965), a work on which Nicolas de Staël had begun to collaborate and which was published after his death.