Popular wisdom, which is not invariably wrong, cherishes the notion of the artist as mad genius. In point of fact, there have been relatively few mad geniuses in the arts, one or the other component usually preponderating. In modern times, to be sure, there was Vincent van Gogh, but even such likely contenders as Alfred Jarry (fake madman), Hugo Wolf (belated madman), and Ezra Pound (opportunistic madman) do not fully qualify.

Antonin Artaud, on the other hand, has always appeared genuinely mad, but his work as actor, director, playwright, theater polemicist, critical essayist, and poet seemed either too sparse or too erratic and eccentric for genius. But now that MOMA has mounted an exhibition of his drawings, Artaud may just make it as a full-fledged member of the sad, select club of mad geniuses.

It feels somehow appropriate that there should be an error in the huge blowup at the entrance to “Antonin Artaud: Works on Paper.”[1] Signed by Margit Rowell, Chief Curator, Department of Drawings, who assembled the show, it states that Artaud “died of cancer at Ivry in March 1948, at the age of fifty-two.” The chronology in the exhibition catalogue repeats the error: “4 MARCH: Dies at the age of fifty-two at Ivry.” Yet the same chronology clearly states that Artaud was born on September 4, 1896. This means that he died aged fifty-one, exactly six months short of his fifty-second birthday.

Not an important mistake, but one that adds a