Page 31 - May 2020

Assembling Only the Best:

The Pedro Correa do Lago Autograph Collection

rom June 1 through September 16, 2018, what man, that was inscribed by the master, himself. An
is considered “one of the most comprehensive obsession was born.
Fautograph collections of our era”* was offered As he described it in a 2018 interview with
on display at the Morgan Library in New York City. The Guardian,
For anyone who missed this once-in-a-lifetime display “He {Truffaut] changed my life. I was so
of some of the most significant pieces of handwritten excited, I wrote to lots of people. I would rush
documents, art, lettering, and notes ever put to paper, home from school to see if Joan Miro, Picasso,
have no fear. The accompanying book to this collection, Chagall, or Iris Murdoch had sent me a letter."
The Magic of Handwriting,* is here to the rescue. The (All did, apart from Picasso.) Correa do Lago
book covers only a small token of this collection that prioritized his eminent addressees by age, to
makes autographs turn into great insights into the past. catch them before it was too late. This wasn’t
The collecting of autographs came into fashion always successful: he received a note from
because they—the signers—were important to Ezra Pound’s sister, commiserating that his
us in one way or another. These collectors were every- letter had arrived the day the poet died.
thing from movie star fans to evidence-seekers looking
to document history. But the collection of Pedro Letters became the favorite item for Correa do
Correa do Lago goes even further to not only show Lago to collect to the point that now he has the
the finished piece but share the knowledge of what circumstances went world’s largest collection of private correspondence. They occupy a
into creating it in the first place. Sometimes an item is not the finished few filing cabinets in his home where he goes to travel through time
piece but the notes and thoughts that went into its creation; a trip into and visit with these friends. As he puts it, “Every collector feels as if he
the time and mind of those who worked to define the history of the were a secret final addressee of the letter.”
event or record a memory or describe the stimulus to what has shifted In total, also according to the BBC, the collection includes tens of
thousands of handwritten documents from 5000 of the most impor-
our view to something ... more.
During an interview with the BBC, Correa do Lago put it this way, tant figures in the fields of art, literature, history, science, music and
“It’s the moment of creation that is materialized in that piece of paper.” entertainment since 1153.

About Pedro Correa do Lago The Day Job
Correa do Lago began his life as the When he is not seeking out and buying for his collection, Correa
son of a Brazilian diplomat working as do Lago deals in contemporary Brazilian art, helping to fund his
the country's ambassador to France. calling. His work as a curator includes exhibits at the Musee d’Orsay
His perchance for collecting signatures and the Musee du Louvre, where his outlook on art and knowledge
started out at the tender age of 11, and of the industry made him well sought-after around the world.
from that time to the present day, Thanks to his childhood travels with his family throughout
Correa do Lago has gathered, Europe and South America, his life has been full of educational expe-
researched, and expanded his mind riences. He speaks five languages, holds a master's degree in econom-
from the over 100,000 hand-written ics from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, worked
or hand-signed documents in his as an antiquarian bookseller in Sau Paulo, and acted as Sotheby's rep-
possession. These include music, resentative in that city from 1986 to 2012. He has written over 20
letters, drawings, official documents, books primarily focused on his ever-growing catalog raisonne, with
and those things that struck a chord titles like Everything So Far or Complete Work (1816-1821).
with his collecting
aesthetic. His first items were obtained from a period
when he chased down artists and writers hoping to The ignighter to the flame:
the signed copy of L’enfant
build a relationship as a pen pal. Sauvage sent to Pedro Correa
Among his first collecting efforts were letters to JRR do Lago weeks after he
Tolkien and Francois Truffaut, asking for their auto- reached out to Truffaut for
graphs. This was perhaps inspired by a large volume of an autograph. He had also
Who’s Who that rested on his father’s bookshelf at the reached out to JRR Tolkien
embassy. The results were not exactly inspiring for a at the same time to no avail,
burgeoning collector. Tolkien had stopped sending out as Tolkien had recently
autographs because the sheer volume of requests had stopped signing autographs
become too much. From the Truffaut address ... due to the volume of requests
crickets. But then, the magic began when he discovered he was receiving at the time.
a copy of the book that inspired Truffaut’s film
L’Enfant Sauvage, a film recently seen by the young

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