Farewell to the Muse

Description

A fascinating examination of the ambitions and friendships of a talented group of midcentury women artists Farewell to the Muse documents what it meant to be young, ambitious, and female in the context of an avant-garde movement defined by celebrated men whose backgrounds were often quite different from those of their younger lovers and companions. Focusing on the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, Whitney Chadwick charts five female friendships among the Surrealists to show how Surrealism, female friendship, and the experiences of war, loss, and trauma shaped individual women's transitions from someone else's muse to mature artists in their own right. Her vivid account includes the fascinating story of Claude Cahun and Suzanne Malherbe in occupied Jersey, as well as the experiences of Lee Miller and Valentine Penrose at the front line. Chadwick draws on personal correspondence between women, including the extraordinary letters between Leonora Carrington and Leonor... 1. The Alchemy of Desire: Valentine Penrose and Alice Rahon Paalen, India 1937 * 2. The Two Leonors: Leonora Carrington and Leonor Fini, Saint-Martin-d'Ardeche, 1938-41 * 3. 'I Will Write to You with My Eyes', Frida Kahlo and Jacqueline Lamba Breton, Mexico and Paris, 1938-45 * 4. Soldiers without Names, Claude Cahun, Suzanne Malherbe and Jacqueline Lamba, Jersey, 1938-45 * 5. Wars without End, Lee Miller and Valentine Penrose, 1940-78