"Penrose", wrote Andre Breton, "est Surrealiste dans l'amitie" - and "The Friendly Surrealist" is an apt description for the man who more than any other nurtured the friendships and contacts which introduced European Surrealism to the British art world. This memoir, written by his son Antony, is published to accompany an important retrospective exhibition in Edinburgh and is illustrated with contemporary photographs, including those of his second wife (the author's mother), Lee Miller. Born in 1900 into a strict Quaker family, Penrose discovered the Bloomsbury set in Cambridge before embarking upon a life driven by passion and fascination for modern art. He embraced the Surrealist movement and the intensively creative spirit of the times through his friendships with Picasso (of whom he wrote an important biography), Man Ray, Miro, Ernst, and his first wife, the Gascan poet Valentine Bouet. His own paintings, sculptures and collages form an important and often overlooked contribution to the canon of international Surrealism. After World War II Penrose undertook a central role in the development of the British art scene, particularly in the foundation of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London. A prolific exhibition organizer, Penrose initiated the First International Surrealist Exhibition in London in 1936, and the first real "blockbuster" shows of Picasso, Ernst and Miro at the Tate Gallery in the 1960s.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
The son of Picasso pal and British surrealist painter Roland Penrose and the saucy and brilliant American photographer Lee Miller, Penrose published a memorable book about his controversial, hell-raising mom. Now it's Daddy's turn in this briefer and much milder biography, with some elements of a personal memoir. Penrose describes his father's friendships with creators like painter Max Ernst and poet Paul Eluard in a manner akin to Quentin Bell's writings on Bloomsbury. (The author knew some of them, too, as most lived well into their 80s and 90s.) But the dominant force in Roland's life was Picasso, to whom he was devoted, writing all sorts of propagandistic books and articles about Le Grand Pablo, organizing exhibits, dutifully loathing anyone Picasso decided to dislike, etc. As a painter, Roland was fairly weak tea (as 21 color and 29 b&w illustrations show), technically inferior to someone like Magritte, with a softer, more obliging visual imagination. (His later collages, done as an octogenarian, are the best works here, and show real backbone.) As director of the Roland Penrose Collection and Lee Miller Archive in Sussex, England, Penrose fils understandably overrates his father's work, is generously uncritical of all but his most extreme acts of Picasso worship and even describes his masochistic sexual tastes (handcuffs and all) in a tolerant tone. Roland was avid for official honors like a knighthood (which he got) and was known in later years as Britain's "grand old man of surrealism" a title that reflects the still-prevalent ignorance of the destructive and irreverent qualities of real surrealism. This book will appeal for larger art collections, and to any Picasso buff hunting down every association.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From the Publisher
Born in 1900 into a strict Quaker family, Penrose discovered the Bloomsbury set in Cambridge before embarking upon a life driven by passion and fascination for modern art. He embraced the Suurealism movement and the intensively creative spirit of the times through his friendships with Picasso (of whom he wrote an important biography), Man Ray, Miro, Ernst, and his first wife, the Gascan poet Valentine Bouet. His own paintings, sculptures and collages form an often overlooked contribution to the canon of international Surrealism.
After World War II, Penrose undertook a central role in the development of the British art scene, particulrarly in the foundation of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London. A prolific exhibition organizer, Penrose initiated the First International Surrealist Exhibition in London in 1936, and the first real 'blockbuster' shows of Picasso, Ernst, and Miro at the Tate Gallery in the 1960's.
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