Since the inauguration of the Wittockiana in 1983 until very recently, Pierre Lecuire – good friend of Michel Wittock, as well as poet, publisher and architect of books – contributed relentlessly to the museum’s collection, donating many of his poetic works, which the collector took great pleasure in having specially bound by master bookbinders.

In 2007, Lecuire and his wife Mila Gagarine donated to the Wittockiana ten different bindings, ten veritable works of art done by ten masterful contemporary artists, all versions of the same book La Nuit bleue, Pierre Lecuire’s poetic vision of the May 1968 student uprisings in Paris.

These master bookbinders include: Georges Leroux, Pierre-Lucien Martin, Monique Mathieu, Jean de Gonet, Germaine de Coster, Jean Knoll, Mechthild Lobisch, Liliane Gérard, Sün Evrard and Anne Goy. Michel Wittock added to his friend’s donations his own bindings of the same book from bookbinders Monique Mathieu, Liliane Gérard, Milena Alessi and Edgard Claes.