[SOLONAS, Valerie]: Girl Power: SCUM (society for cutting up men)

[Paris]: [Henri Jean Enu], [1972]. First edition. Poster. 43.6cm by 31cm. Very scarce poster from the archives of Henri-Jean Enu, one of the principal figures of the French Underground movement. Together with the former Lettrist Jean-Louis Brau, the poet Claude Pélieu, the publishers Mary Beach and Christian Bourgois, and the former member of the London Psychogeographical Committee Ralph Rumney, Enu founded the countercultural journal Le Parapluie, a publication closely aligned in spirit with British underground newspapers and magazines such as International Times (IT), Ink, and Oz. Issue 11 of Le Parapluie which contained extracts from Valerie Solanas’ controversial publication Scum Manifesto a radical feminist text that blames men for the ills of humankind and urges women to “overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and eliminate the male sex”. Solanas wrote the text between 1966 and 1967. In 1967, she self-published the first edition by making two thousand mimeographed copies and selling them on the streets of Greenwich Village in New York City. Solanas charged women one dollar and men two dollars each. The work was little-known until the attempted assassination of Andy Warhol by Solanas in 1968, which brought significant public attention to the SCUM Manifesto and Solanas herself. The poster here, although larger reproduces, the first page of the extracts as contained on page four of the December 1972 issue of Le Parapluie. A poor but possibly unique survival, with the number 172 in black ink to top left corner, edgewear and tears with loss at bottom corners and left edge. Rare this is the only example we have been able to locate.