Surrealist Women: An International Anthology / Edition 1

by Penelope Rosemont

Overview

Beginning in Paris in the 1920s, women poets, essayists, painters, and artists in other media have actively collaborated in defining and refining surrealism's basic project—achieving a higher, open, and dynamic consciousness, from which no aspect of the real or the imaginary is rejected. Indeed, few artistic or social movements can boast as many women forebears, founders, and participants—perhaps only feminism itself. Yet outside the movement, women's contributions to surrealism have been largely ignored or simply unknown.

This anthology, the first of its kind in any language, displays the range and significance of women's contributions to surrealism. Letting surrealist women speak for themselves, Penelope Rosemont has assembled nearly three hundred texts by ninety-six women from twenty-eight countries. She opens the book with a succinct summary of surrealism's basic aims and principles, followed by a discussion of the place of gender in the movement's origins. She then organizes the book into historical periods ranging from the 1920s to the present, with introductions that describe trends in the movement during each period. Rosemont also prefaces each surrealist's work with a brief biographical statement.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780292770881
Publisher:	University of Texas Press
Publication date:	09/01/1998
Series:	Surrealist Revolution Series
Edition description:	1ST
Pages:	576
Sales rank:	919,674
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Affiliated with the Surrealist Group in Paris in the 1960s, Penelope Rosemont is a Chicago poet and painter.

Table of Contents

• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: All My Names Know Your Leap: Surrealist Women and Their Challenge
• Notes on Individuals Frequently Cited in This Anthology
• 1. The First Women Surrealists, 1924-1929
  • Introduction: The Women of La Révolution surréaliste
  • Renée Gauthier
    • Dream: I Am in a Field...
  • Simone Kahn
    • Surrealist Text: This Took Place in the Springtime...
    • The Exquisite Corpses
  • Denise Levy
    • Surrealist Text: I Went into a Green Song...
    • Surrealist Text: Ivory Blue and Shady Satin...
  • Nancy Cunard
    • Surrealist Manifestation at the Diaghilev Ballet
    • The Beginnings of the Surrealist Revolution
    • Surrealism, Ethnography, and Revolution
  • Nadja
    • The Blue Wind
  • Fanny Beznos
    • I Go, the Wind Pushing Me Along
    • Purity! Purity! Purity!
  • Suzanne Muzard
    • On Love: Reply to an Inquiry
    • My Passage in Surrealism
  • Valentine Penrose
    • When It Comes to Love: Response to an Inquiry
  • Suzanne Muzard, Elsie Houston, and Jeannette Ducrocq Tanguy
    • Surrealist Games
• 2. In the Service of Revolution, 1930-1939
  • Introduction: Women and Surrealism in the Thirties
  • Claude Cabun
    • Captive Balloon
    • The Invisible Adventure
    • Poetry Keeps Its Secret
    • Surrealism and Working-Class Emancipation
    • From life I still expect that overwhelming experience
    • Beware Domestic Objects!
  • Nancy Cunard
    • How Come, White Man?
    • The Scottsboro Case
    • A Trip to Harlem
  • Simone Yoyotte
    • Pale Blue Line in a Forced Episode
    • Half-Season
  • Greta Knutson
    • Foreign Land
  • Lise Deharme
    • The Empty Cage
    • The Little Girl of the Black Forest
  • Denise Bellon, Gala Dalí, Nusch Eluard, Yolande Oliviero
    • Experimental Research: On the Irrational Knowledge of the Object: The Crystal Ball of the Seers
  • Maruja Mallo
    • Surrealism as Manifest in My Work
  • Meret Oppenheim
    • Where Is the Wagon Going?
    • If You Say the Right Word, I Can Sing...
    • Anyone That Sees Her White Fingers...
  • Jacqueline Lamba
    • A Revolutionary Approach to Life and the World
  • Gisèle Prassinos
    • Arrogant Hair
    • The Ghost of Chateaubriand
  • Toyen
    • A Community of Ethical Views
  • Alice Rahon
    • Four Poems from On the Bare Ground
    • Despair
    • Hourglass Lying Down
  • Valentine Penrose
    • There Is the Fire
    • The Datura the Serpent
    • To a Woman to a Path
  • Sheila Legge
    • I Have Done My Best For You
  • Eileen Agar
    • Am I a Surrealist?
  • Mary Low
    • Women and the Spanish Revolution
  • Marcelle Ferry
    • You Came down from the Mountains...
    • When He Went Away...
    • The One Seated on the Stones of Cheops...
    • Frenzy, Sweet Little Child, You Sleep...
  • Leonora Carrington
    • The Sand Camel
  • Grace Pailthorpe
    • What We Put in Prison
    • The Scientific Aspect of Surrealism
    • Surrealist Art
    • On the Importance of Fantasy Life
  • Hélène Vanel
    • Poetry and Dance
  • Ithell Colquhoun
    • What Do I Need to Paint a Picture?
  • Jeanne Megnen
    • The Noise Will Start Tomorrow
• 3. Neither Your War Nor Your Peace: The Surrealist International, 1940-1945
  • Introduction: Women in the Surrealist Diaspora: First Principles and New Beginnings
  • Suzanne Césaire
    • André Breton, Poet
    • Discontent of a Civilization
    • 1943: Surrealism and Us
    • The Domain of the Marvelous
  • Mary Low
    • Perchance to Dream
    • Women and Love through Private Property
  • Frida Kahlo
    • I Paint My Own Reality
    • From Her Journal
  • Lucie Thésée
    • Beautiful as...
    • The Buckets in My Head...
    • Where Will the Earth Fall?
  • Leonora Carrington
    • Down Below
  • Régine Raufast
    • Photography and Image
  • Laurence Iché
    • Scissors Strokes by the Clock...
    • I Prefer Your Uneasiness Like a Dark Lantern...
    • Unpublished Correspondence
    • The Philosophers' Stone
  • Gertrude Pape
    • The Lake
    • Eardrops from Babylon
  • Susy Hare
    • Complaint for a Sorcerer
  • Sonia Sekula
    • Womb
  • Meret Oppenheim
    • Round the World with the Rumpus God....
  • Ithell Colquhoun
    • "Everything Found on Land Is Found in the Sea"
    • Water-Stone of the Wise
  • Emmy Bridgwater
    • On the Line
    • Back to the First Bar
    • The Journey
    • The Birds
  • Edith Rimmington
    • The Growth at the Break
    • The Sea-Gull
  • Alice Rahon
    • Pointed Out Like the Stars...
    • Little Epidermis
    • Sublimated Mercury
    • The Appellants
    • Ferns in a Hollow of Absence...
    • The Sleeping Woman
  • Eva Sulzer
    • Butterfly Dreams
    • Amerindian Art
  • Jacqueline Johnson
    • The Paintings of Alice Rahon Paalen
    • The Earth
  • Ida Kar
    • I Chose Photography
  • Ikbal El Alailly
    • Introduction to Vertu de l'Allemagne [The Virtue of Germany]
• 4. Surrealism versus the Cold War, 1946-1959
  • Introduction: Regroupment and Occultation: Women in the Surrealist Underground in the 1950s
  • Thérèse Renaud
    • I Lay My Head
  • Françoise Sullivan
    • Dance and Automatism
  • Iréne Hamoir
    • Pearl
    • Aria
    • The Procession
  • Emmy Bridgwater, Ithell Colquhoun, Iréne Hamoir, and Edith Rimmington
    • Surrealist Inquiry: What Do You Hate Most?
  • Lise Deharme
    • I Didn't Know Gertrude Stein
  • Maria Martins
    • I Am the Tropical Night's High Noon
    • Art, Liberation, and Peace
  • Helen Phillips
    • The Image: Recognition of a Moment
  • Vera Hérold
    • The Big L
  • Gisèle Prassinos
    • Peppermint Tower in Praise of Greedy Little Girls
  • Ithell Colquhoun
    • The Mantic Stain: Surrealism and Automatism
  • Dorothea Tanning
    • Legend
  • Nora Mitrani
    • Scandal with a Secret Face
    • "Blacker Than Black. . ."
    • About Cats and Magnolias
    • Poetry, Freedom of Being
    • On Slaves, Suffragettes, and the Whip
    • Concupiscence and Scandal: Definitions from the Succinct Lexicon of Eroticism
  • Valentine Penrose
    • I Dream
    • Beautiful or Ugly It Doesn't Matter
  • Jacqueline Johnson
    • Taking a Sight 1951
  • Alice Rahon
    • Painter and Magician
  • Jacqueline Senard
    • Reason and Safety Factors
    • Cat=Clover
    • Polar
  • Elisa Breton
    • One in the Other
  • Elisa Breton, Anne Segbers, and Toyen
    • Surrealist Inquiry: Would You Open the Door?
  • Joyce Mansour
    • Into the Red Velvet
    • Lovely Monster
    • Practical Advice for Waiting
    • To Come, Possession, Prick Tease: Definitions from the Succinct Lexicon of Eroticism
  • Meret Oppenheim
    • Automatism at a Crossroads
    • I Have to Write Down the Black Words
  • Judit Reigl
    • Points of Departure for a New Revolt
  • Isabel Meyrelles
    • Night Words
  • Anneliese Hager
    • Of the Poison of Dreams
    • The Blue Spell
    • Automatic Dream
  • Drahomira Vandas
    • Light Throws Shadows
    • An Egg Hatches Out a Flame
    • Rain Man
  • Olga Orozco
    • Twilight (Between Dog and Wolf)
  • Blanca Varela
    • Dance Card
  • Marianne van Hirtum
    • In Those Rooms...
    • Abandon, Meeting, Orgasm, Seduce, Vice: Definitions from the Succinct Lexicon of Eroticism
  • Leonora Carrington
    • Comments on The Temptation of St. Anthony
    • On Magic Art: A Conversation, 1996
  • Kay Sage
    • Painter and Writer
    • An Observation
    • The Window
    • Chinoiserie
    • Fragrance
  • Mimi Parent
    • Depraved Person, License, Masturbation, Voyeur: Definitions from the Succinct Lexicon of Eroticism
  • Sonia Sekula
    • Notes from a Journal: The Occurrence of Meeting a Face Contra a Face
  • Remedios Varo
    • A Recipe: How to Produce Erotic Dreams
• 5. The Making of "May '68" and Its Sequels
  • Introduction: Women in the Surrealist Resurgence of the 1960s and 1970s
  • Nora Mitrani
    • In Defense of Surrealism
  • Nelly Kaplan
    • Memoirs of a Lady Sheet Diviner
    • At the Women Warriors' Table
    • Enough or Still More
    • All Creation Is Androgynous: An Interview
  • Nicole Espagnol
    • Female Socket
    • Heartstopping
    • The Conclusion Is Not Drawn
    • The Wind Turns
  • Annie Le Brun
    • Introduction to Drop Everything!
  • Giovanna
    • Where Are We in Relation to Surrealism?
    • Baking Chocolate and Dialectics
    • What Do I Know...
    • Therapy
  • Monique Charbonel
    • It's a Wonder
  • Unica Zürn
    • Lying in Ambush
  • Elisabeth Lenk
    • Surrealism: A Liberating and Catalyzing Element in Germany Today
    • Automatic Text for Anne Ethuin
  • Penelope Rosemont
    • Passage
    • Candle
    • Rising Asleep
  • Joyce Mansour
    • A Mango
    • Night in the Shape of a Bison
    • Ten to One to No
    • Wild Glee from Elsewhere
    • Absolute Divergence: The International Surrealist Exhibition, 1965-1966
  • Mimi Parent
    • Are You a Surrealist?
  • Marianne van Hirtum
    • The Future of Surrealism: Response to an Inquiry
    • While We Spend Our Lives Ironing...
    • And I Shall Be the Mouth of Copper...
    • The Naked Truth
    • Vampiro Nox
    • Surrealism: Rising Sign
  • Anne Ethuin
    • Legend
  • Isabel Meyrelles
    • I Will Tell You During the Walk...
    • Tyger, Tyger
  • Luiza Neto Jorge
    • Another Genealogy
    • "Monument to Birds" (Max Ernst)
    • Fable
    • The Force of Gravity
    • Sphericity: Ferocity
  • Alejandra Pizarnik
    • Caroline von Günderode
    • In a Copy of Les Chants de Maldoror
  • Leila Ferraz
    • Secrets of Surrealist Magic Art
    • My Love, I Speak to You of a Love
  • Rikki Ducornet
    • My Special Madness
    • Necromancy
    • Dark Star, Black Star
    • Machete
    • Clean
  • Nancy Joyce Peters
    • To the Death of Mirrors
    • General Strike
    • Nelly Kaplan's Néa: Woman and Eroticism in Film
  • Alice Farley
    • Notes toward a Surrealist Dance
  • Jayne Cortez
    • Consultation
    • Feathers
    • In the Line of Duty
    • Make Ifa
    • Say It
  • Haifa Zangana
    • Can We Disturb These Living Coffins?
    • A Symbol of Sin and Evil Thoughts: Introduction to Ibn Hazm Al-Andalusi
  • Hilary Booth
    • Their Games and Ours: A Note on Time-Travelers' Potlatch
  • Hilary Booth, Nancy Joyce Peters, Penelope Rosemont, Debra Taub
    • Surrealist Games: Time-Travelers' Potlatch
  • Valentine Penrose
    • From These Husks Are Worlds Made
  • Leonora Carrington
    • What Is a Woman?
    • The Cabbage Is a Rose
  • Meret Oppenheim
    • Nobody Will Give You Freedom, You Have to Take It
• 6. Surrealism: A Challenge to the Twenty-First Century
  • Introduction: Women and Surrealism Today and Tomorrow
  • Silvia Grénier
    • Salomé
    • Signs
  • Carmen Bruna
    • Poetry: An Incitement to Revolt
    • "Lady from Shanghai"
    • Moi-Même (Myself)
  • Eva Svankmajerová
    • Emancipation Cycle
    • Tactile Lids
    • Stunned by Freedom
    • I Don't Know Exactly
  • Alena Nádvorn'ková
    • Emila Medková's Photographs and the Anthropomorphization of Detail
    • Determination of Time
    • Art History (Sandro Botticelli)
  • Ivana Ciglinová
    • The Old Crow's Story
  • Mary Low
    • The Companion
    • Q.E.D.
    • Where the Wolf Sings
    • Encounter
  • Hilary Booth
    • Long Hot Summer: Great Black Music Today
    • Preface to I Am Rain
    • Our Skin Is Paper
    • Poem for Central America
  • Marie-Dominique Massoni
    • Two Seconds
    • How Old Is the Old Mole?
  • Haifa Zangana
    • What Choice?
  • Jayne Cortez
    • When I Look at Wifredo Lam's Paintings
    • Bumblebee, You Saw Big Mama
    • Sacred Trees
  • Penelope Rosemont
    • Life and Times of the Golden Goose
    • The Bad Days Will End
    • Revolution by Chance
  • Rikki Ducornet
    • The Volatilized Ceiling of Baron Munodi
    • Manifesto in Voices
  • Alice Farley
    • Permutations of Desire
    • Costumes: Vehicles of Transformation
    • Gesture
  • Irene Plazewska
    • Newton's Descent
  • Debra Taub
    • A Dance in the Forest
    • Exquisite Alchemy
    • Secret Melodies
  • Gina Litherland
    • Imagination and Wilderness
  • Ivanir de Oliveira
    • Collage: Image of Revelation
  • Nicole E. Reiss
    • Divagations
    • A Delirious Voyage inside a Circle
  • Elaine Parra
    • To Radicalize with Beauty and Love
  • Sarah Metcalf
    • A Game of Slight Disturbances
  • Katerina Pinosová
    • The Piece of Bone
  • Lenka Valacbová
    • The Sterile Dish
  • Kajsa Bergh
    • Desire
  • Petra Mandal
    • First-Hand Knowledge
  • Nancy Joyce Peters
    • Women and Surrealism
• Bibliography
• Index

What People are Saying About This

Stephen Eric Bronner

This is a very fine volume; it is inclusive, superbly researched, and the introductions are clearly written. . . . It should become a standard text of surrealism.
— Stephen Eric Bronner, Professor of Political Science and Comparative Literature, Rutgers University

Editorial Reviews

Though surrealism has often been viewed as a male-dominated movement, women (many more than the few well-known artists such as Lenora Carrington and Frida Kahlo) have been integral to its development. In this first anthology of writings by women Surrealists, drawn from an impressively global group, Rosemont (Beware of the Ice and Other Poems, Black Swan, 1992) dives deeper than the extant writing on the movement to unearth the women involved since its inception. These varied writings--automatic texts, prose pieces, critical tracts, Surrealist inquiries (e.g., "Would You Open the Door?"), and results of Surrealist games (e.g., "Time-Traveler's Potlatch")--offer a history of women's formative participation in surrealism's past and create a context for its future. Rosemont's insightful introduction, short essays prefacing each major period of the movement, and brief bibliographies illuminate a vibrant revolution in process. An important research tool as well as a fascinating read, this major contribution to art history and literary scholarship is highly recommended for academic and public libraries.--Rebecca Miller, "Library Journal"

Library Journal

Organized by era and including a brief introduction to the aims and principles of surrealism, presents selections of nearly 100 women's work. Entries range from journal excerpts to complete poems or short stories. A short biography of each woman precedes her work, placing her in a historical and artistic context. Primarily focuses on written works, but includes reproductions of visual arts as well. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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