The Ace of something completely different

July 19, 2010 2:30 PM

In 1940 several Surrealists were biding their time in a Villa near Marseille awaiting their Visa’s to escape from the oncoming Nazis. One way to while away the time was to play the Le Jeu de Marseilles with cards they had made themselves while waiting.
posted by adamvasco (9 comments total)

Well, looks like we killed that first site, as it now doesn't load at all, even at the top-level domain.
posted by koeselitz at 2:38 PM on July 19, 2010

Ah! It's back!

Awesome post, by the way! Thanks.
posted by koeselitz at 2:39 PM on July 19, 2010

Not working for me, but here's a Google cache of the page, and one from Archive.org with better formatting, but still no images.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:45 PM on July 19, 2010

Excellent! (all links working for me...)
posted by mrgrimm at 3:03 PM on July 19, 2010

Wow. These are great!
posted by brundlefly at 3:38 PM on July 19, 2010

Is there an actual game in this, or is it just a decorated deck of otherwise functional cards that would be used for Poker, 500, Hearts, Go Fish, Euchre, or any other standard game?
posted by aeschenkarnos at 7:21 PM on July 19, 2010

Functional Surrealism, no longer an oxymoron!

The cards are cool, too.
posted by Xoebe at 7:40 PM on July 19, 2010

There is a book in French about the period, the cards and the artists. It may also be in English translation, I haven't checked yet.

Cool post, thanks!
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 8:50 PM on July 19, 2010

These are absolutely amazing. Great post. These are not playing cards; as the name suggests, they're based on Tarot de Marseille.
posted by cmyr at 7:45 AM on July 20, 2010