Ua timeless story, beloved by some, hard to understand for others, capable, like all stories, of giving different emotions depending on the age of the “first meeting”: The little Prince, classic of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry will be the protagonist of an exhibition that promises to be already unmissable for fans.
The Little Prince, in Paris until June 2022
The address to mark in the diary is that of Musée des Arts Décoratifs (MAD) in Paris, where from February 17 to June 26 2022 the first major French exhibition on this volume and its author will be hosted. À la rencontre du petit prince, this is the title, it collects more than six hundred pieceswhich celebrate the life of Saint-Exupéry, writer and poet, but also journalist, aviator, philosopher and inventor, animated throughout his life by a humanistic ideal, the true driving force of his work.
The little prince in the rose garden © Éditions Gallimard.
A story for all ages
Among the most precious pieces on display, the original manuscript of Little Princewhich Saint-Exupéry wrote in New York between 1942 and 1943, and which was published for the first time in America, arriving in France only in 1946.
One hundred and fifty pages, which tell the story of an interstellar traveler who arrives on Earth in search of friends. A little boy who, with his teachings, forges and marks, makes people think, especially the grown-ups, to whom “You always have to explain everything”, the author warns amiably at the beginning of the story. A story full of poetic illustrations, a staple of children’s literature and full of philosophical messages.
A 1974 edition, translated into Amharic Ethiopian official language). © Fondation JMP pour BVG.
Through the clues dispersed in the texts, drawings and artifacts presented, À la rencontre du petit prince highlights often overlooked or unknown aspects of Saint-Exupéry’s life, offering a deeper understanding of his internationally recognized masterpiece, as universal as, at times, still enigmatic.
“I’d like to give you something splendid”
The history of the manuscript itself has something wonderful about it. “I would like to give you something splendid”, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said introducing himself to the door of his American friend Silvia Hamilton, in military uniform, before returning to France to enlist as a reconnaissance pilot, “But that’s all I have”he added, handing her the manuscript. Silvia, in 1968, would have sold it to what is now the Morgan Library & Museum in New York, where it is still preserved.
The author would never have returned from the war: his plane disappeared off the coast of Marseille and was only located and recovered in 2004. It was shot down by a Lufwaffe fighter.
The cover of the first edition of the book. It was published in New York in 1943 © Fondation JMP pour LPP.
The sky and the drawing, key points in the life of Saint Exupéry
The tragic death of Saint-Exupéry transformed, in fact, The little Prince in his artistic will. Inside him, much of his life, starting from the passion for flying, love and condemnation. The exhibition traces this indissoluble relationship, recounting some of the most significant events in the writer’s life as an aviator, first of all the plane crash in which he was involved on the Saigon-Paris route in 1935, together with his mechanic, André Prévost.
The front of a 50-franc note, featuring Antoine De Saint-Éxupery and the little prince © MAD Paris.
À la rencontre du petit prince also dedicates ample space to the author’s drawings. For him, pencil and paper were a way to reconnect with his childhood. Not surprisingly, it is precisely through the drawing that the aviator and the little prince get to know each other: “Please draw me a sheep!Asked the first to the second, after his plane crashed in the Sahara desert due to an engine failure.
Real and imaginary, fantasy and destiny, thus intertwine in a timeless story, which in almost eighty years has conquered more than one generation, of all ages.
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