'Fizzingly written and sumptuously illustrated... What makes this biographical dictionary of British painters and sculptors so readable is that Morris is writing about people he once knew very well indeed... this beautifully illustrated book - each artist's bio is accompanied by two or three paintings - is a reminder of the extraordinary work of such Britons as Carrington and Agar.' - Sunday Times. One of the last surviving members, Surrealist artist and bestselling author Desmond Morris reveals the lives, loves and works of the British Surrealists art movement. He presents the intriguing life stories and complex love lives of this wild and curious set of artists, from the unpredictability of Francis Bacon and the rebelliousness of Leonora Carrington, from the beguiling Eileen Agar to the 'brilliant' Ceri Richards. He features 34 surrealists who followed the dictates of André Breton, founder of the movement who, in 1924, had published a manifesto in Paris in which he gave a precise definition of Surrealism. Roland Penrose who had spent more than a decade in Paris with the original Surrealist group mounted a major exhibition in London, bought a house in Hampstead, formed a committee and elevated the status of the British contingent who had been producing strange, rebellious, imaginative works and some artists had not even been aware of the movement. Other names include Tristram Hillyer, Conroy Maddox, Oscar Mellor, Paul Nash, Gordon Onslow Ford, Grace Pailthorpe, Edith Rimmington, Graham Sutherland, Julian Trevelyan among the famous and forgotten who carved their own independent paths in art. 248 large pages, many colour photos.
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