Fêted for their idiosyncratic and imaginative works, the surrealists marked a pivotal moment in the history of modern art in Britain. Many banded together to form the British Surrealist Group, while others carved their own, independent paths. Here, bestselling author and surrealist artist Desmond Morris - one of the last surviving members of this important art movement - draws on his personal memories and experiences to present the intriguing life stories and complex love lives of this wild and curious set of artists. From the unpredictability of Francis Bacon to the rebelliousness of Leonora Carrington, from the beguiling Eileen Agar to the brilliant Ceri Richards, Morris brings his subjects foibles and frailties to the fore. His vivid account is laced with his inimitable wit, and profusely illustrated by images of the artists and their artworks. Featuring thirty-four surrealists - some famous, some forgotten - Morriss intimate book takes us back in time to a generation that allowed its creative unconscious to drive their passions in both art and life. With 105 illustrations

This book was originally published in 1999, and is the first comprehensive study of the British surrealist movement and its achievements. Lavishly illustrated, the book provides a year-by-year narrative of the development of surrealism among artists, writers, critics and theorists in Britain. Surrealism was imported into Britain from France by pioneering little magazines. The 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition in London, put together by Herbert Read and Roland Penrose, marked the first attempt to introduce the concept to a wider public. Relations with the Soviet Union, the Spanish Civil War and World War Two fractured the nascent movement as writers and artists worked out their individual responses and struggled to earn a living in wartime. The book follows the story right through to the present day. Michael Remy draws on 20 years of studying British surrealism to provide this authoritative and biographically rich account, a major contribution to the understanding of the achievements of the artists and writers involved and their allegiance to this key twentieth-century movement.

A revised edition of Whitney Chadwick’s seminal work on the women artists who shaped the Surrealist art movement. This pioneering book stands as the most comprehensive treatment of the lives, ideas, and art works of the remarkable group of women who were an essential part of the Surrealist movement. Leonora Carrington, Frida Kahlo, and Dorothea Tanning, among many others, embodied their age as they struggled toward artistic maturity and their own “liberation of the spirit” in the context of the Surrealist revolution. Their stories and achievements are presented here against the background of the turbulent decades of the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s and the war that forced Surrealism into exile in New York and Mexico. Whitney Chadwick, author of the highly acclaimed Women, Art, and Society, interviewed and corresponded with most of the artists themselves in the course of her research. Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement, now revised with a new foreword by art historian Dawn Ades, contains a wealth of extracts from unpublished writings and numerous illustrations never before reproduced. Since this book was first published, it has acquired the undeniable status of a classic among artists, art historians, critics, and cultural historians. It has inspired and necessitated a revision of the story of the Surrealist movement.

Lee Miller (1907-1977) moved to London in the late 1930s, just as a rich strand of Surrealist practice was burgeoning in Britain. Miller was central to its development and prolonged life after World War II, exhibiting alongside British Surrealists such as Eileen Agar and Henry Moore in often overlooked London exhibitions. This book is the first to present Lee Miller's photographs of, and collaborations with key British Surrealists alongside their artworks, to tell the story of this exciting cultural moment. Miller's photographs of noted continental Surrealists such as Max Ernst and E.L.T Mesens, taken while they were working and exhibiting in Britain, also feature alongside their works, documenting their enduring friendships with Miller and her husband, the artist Roland Penrose. Miller's interdisciplinary photographic practice acted as a conduit for the dispersal of Surrealist images out of the realm of fine art and into the worlds of fashion, commercial photography and journalism. A vital study for all students and enthusiasts of Surrealism and those enthralled by the enigmatic Lee Miller, this book reveals the social and cultural networks in which she was embedded, offering a holistic view of her work and the life of the Surrealist movement in Britain. Exhibition: The Hepworth, Wakefield, UK (22.06.-07.10.2018).

"This multi-disciplinary and cross-generational project explores the central importance of the house within surrealism and its legacies. It brings the first surrealists together with contemporary artists, film-makers and architects. Through a strategy of accumulation and poetic contamination, each informs the other."--Back cover.