Description

Surreal Lovers recounts the lives and loves of a group of artists and writers during one of the most creative and catastrophic periods of human history. It centers on the life of the painter Max Ernst, with a focus on the innovative and creative women he loved and who loved him. They include Leonora Carrington, Peggy Guggenheim, Dorothea Tanning, Luise Straus, Marie-Berthe Aurenche, Leonor Fini, Méret Oppenheim and Gala Éluard. Each was audacious and daring in her own inimitable way; all lived full lives influenced by the vanguard ideas of the time. While Surreal Lovers describes their work and achievements, it also emphasizes the human element in their entwined lives, interweaving their interactions with Ernst and each other.

Surreal Lovers describes the birth of surrealism in 1920s Paris and ends with its demise in the 1940s. The stories contain episodes of great love, passion and art, but there is also anguish, betrayal and madness, for the years in between were a whirlwind that shredded the artists' dreams and scattered them around the globe, from Cologne, London and Paris to Lisbon and New York.

Margaret Hooks writes extensively on the life and work of artists; her books include the award-winning Tina Modotti: Photographer & Revolutionary, Frida Kahlo: Portraits of an Icon and Surreal Eden: Edward James & Las Pozas.