Slides from the talk 'Sussex Surrealism', delivered at the Towner Gallery, Eastbourne, on 27th May 2015.

1. Sussex (and) Surrealism
Dr Sam Cooper
University of Sussex
S.Cooper@Sussex.ac.uk
Picasso at Muddles Green, near Chiddingly, 1950

2. Surrealism?
Surréalisme?
Super-realism?
The ‘vexed question of the proper
Englishing’ of the movement

3. Selected Surrealist Manifestos and Groups
1924 France
Yugoslavia
1926 Belgium
Hungary
1928 Romania
1929 Czechoslovakia
1934 Egypt
1936 United Kingdom
1938 Chile
1940 Mexico

4. ‘Surrealist Manifesto’, Andre Breton (1924)
‘We are still living under the reign of logic.’
‘Under the pretence of civilisation and progress,
we have managed to banish from the mind
everything that may rightly or wrongly be
termed superstition or fancy; forbidden is any
kind of search for truth which is not in
accordance with accepted practices.’
‘I believe in the future resolution of these two
states, dream and reality, which are seemingly so
contradictory, into a kind of absolute reality, a
surreality, if one may so speak.’

5. ‘And the Seventh Dream is the Dream of Isis’, David Gascoyne (1933)
white curtains of infinite fatigue
dominating the starborn heritage of the colonies of St Francis
white curtains of tortured destinies
inheriting the calamities of the plagues of the desert
encourage the waistlines of women to expand
and the eyes of men to enlarge like pocket-cameras
teach children to sin at the age of five
to cut out the eyes of their sisters with nail-scissors
to run into the streets and offer themselves to unfrocked priests
teach insects to invade the deathbeds of rich spinsters
and to engrave the foreheads of their footmen with purple signs
for the year is open the year is complete
the year is full of unforeseen happenings
and the time of earthquakes is at hand

6. ‘Automatic Drawing’, Andre Masson (1924)
Psychic Automatism
‘Exquisite Corpse’ drawing by Man Ray, Yves
Tanguy, Joan Miro and Max Morise (1927)

7. The Surrealist Revolution (1924-1929)
The Politics of Surrealism
Surrealism in the Service of the Revolution
(1930-1933)

8. Socialist Realism (1939)
The Politics of Surrealism
‘L’Ange du foyeur’, Max Ernst (1937)

9. ‘The Surrealist Muse… does not often descend
upon English soil; for she is terrified of the poet
laureate, the censor, the Conservative
Association, buy British goods, empire day, do
your Christmas shopping early, the Queen’s
doll’s house, sales on now, why not wear the
Boston garter?’
Edouard Roditi, ‘A New Reality’ (1929)

10. David Gascoyne’s A Short Survey of Surrealism (1935)
with cover art by Max Ernst
David Gascoyne
Gascoyne in 1951

11. Herbert Read’s Surrealism (1936)
with cover art by Roland Penrose
Herbert Read
Read in 1941

12. Poster by Max Ernst
International Surrealist Exhibition 1936
Exhibition organising committee, including
Herbert Read fourth from right, back row.

13. International Surrealist Exhibition 1936
Sheila Legge
as the Surrealist Phantom

14. Mass-Observation
Humphrey Jennings
Charles Madge and Tom Harrisson

15. Mass-Observation
‘Washing Day’ and ‘Graffiti’, both Bolton, by Humphrey Spender

16. Mass-Observation
‘Fence’ and ‘Working Man’s Hair Specialist’, both Bolton, by Humphrey Spender

17. Humphrey Jennings

18. Humphrey Jennings
‘Surrealist’ scenes of bomb damage in London Can Take It! (1940)

19. Humphrey Jennings
Graffham in Penny Journey (1938)

20. Lee Miller
Miller’s first Vogue cover, 15th March 1927 ‘Solarized’ portrait of Miller by Man Ray, c.1929

21. Lee Miller
‘Revenge on Culture’ (1940) ‘Women in Fire Masks’ (1941) ‘A Bombed Chapel’ (1940)

22. Lee Miller
Miller in Hitler’s bathtub , 1945

23. Roland Penrose

24. Roland Penrose
‘Winged Domino’ (1938)
‘The Real Woman’ (1938)

25. Roland Penrose
‘The Conquest of the Air’ (1938)
‘The Last Voyage of Captain Cook’ (1936)

26. Surrealism and Camouflage
Penrose’s ‘startle’ slide.
Lee Miller camouflaged, c.1940
First World War ‘dazzle ship’
Dummy tank, 1942

27. Farley Farm House

28. Farley Farm House
Roland and Lee in Vogue, 1965

29. Farley Farm House
Roland Penrose’s fireplace mural (1950)
The Long Man

30. Edward James
‘Not to be Reproduced’ and ‘The Pleasure Principle’, both portraits of James by Rene Magritte (1937)

31. Seaside Surrealism
‘Swanage’, Paul Nash (c.1936)
Sweet shop window, Brighton
Roland Penrose, 1937
Lee Miller and Fortune-Telling Slot Machine,
Brighton
Roland Penrose, 1937

32. ‘Working Guests’
Saul Steinberg draws the Long Man (1953)
Saul Steinberg wrestles with a hose (1953)
Dorothea Tanning and Max Ernst
in the garden (1950)