French surrealist writer and ethnographer, he was the witness for his friend Georges Bataille at his wedding with Sylvia Bataille.
Friend with painter André Masson, he became the son in law of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler and thus became member of the modern artists group that were around this major art dealer.
As an ethnographer, he took part in the Mission Dakar-Djibouti ( 1931-1933) and wrote L'Afrique fantôme about it.