The Lives of the Surrealists

The book recounts the most important events in the lives of the surrealists, including both their practice and oftentimes complicated personal relationships. 

There is no other movement in the entire history of art that could have brought such antipodal figures as Magritte and Miró under the same aesthetic umbrella. Historically, surrealism was not an art movement proper, but rather a philosophical idea. It meant a particular lifestyle and, at the same time, a protest against the establishment who unleashed the terribly bloody World War I. Making no attempt to analyze surrealist artworks, the famous writer and surrealist artist Desmond Morris concentrates on the surrealists as individuals and remarkable personalities.

Each chapter traces the life of a particular artist, supplemented by their photographic portrait and a signature art piece. Rooted in the darkest and most irrational depths of the unconscious, surrealist art grew into a powerful international phenomenon. Morris’s flamboyant narration sheds light on the amazing diversity of interpretations of the surrealist philosophy inherent in the artists’ lives and practices.