La Colomba

Venezia [Venice, Italy]: La Colomba, 1962. Single-folded menu, (13 x 13 inches), with screen printed typo-pictorial design in green, bland, and orange. Verso printed in the same colors with food offerings and prices. A menu designed by the Belgian surrealist E.L.T. Mesens, probably created for the design contest of famed Venice art bistro La Colomba. Signed "Mesens 62" in the lower left-hand corner, and further inscribed in 1964 by Mesens to his long-time friend and accomplice, the surrealist jazz musician and all around bohemian and eccentric George Melly, "For Diana and George, who should go to eat by gondola in Venezia! Look at the prices. . . Ted. 1964". Melly was introduced to surrealism by Mesens and worked for a time in his important surrealist gallery in London, where he developed a close and complicated three-way relationship with Mesens and his wife Sybil. Melly would go on to write the biography of Mesens, entitled "Don't Tell Sybil." The "Diana" of the inscription is Diana Moynihan, George's second wife. A fantastic association. Folded twice, with overall creasing, still about very good.