David Bate examines automatism and the photographic image, the Surrealist passion for insanity, ambivalent use of Orientalism, use of Sadean philosophy and the effect of fascism of the Surrealists. The book is illustrated wtih a wide range of surrealist photographs.

The classic Photofile series brings together the best work of the world's greatest photographers in an attractive format and at a reasonable price. Handsome and collectible, the books each contain reproductions in color and/or duotone, plus a critical introduction and a bibliography. Paris in the early 1920s saw the growth of a new art form called surrealism. Both a formal movement and a spiritual orientation, surrealism embraced ethics and politics as well as the arts. Surrealists sought to create a medium that liberated the subconscious mind, and many artists and photographers captured this revolution through photographic images. This new survey includes works by Max Ernst, Dora Maar, Lee Miller, René Magritte, Meret Oppenheim, and more.

Despite the censorship of dissident material during the decade between the Manchurian Incident of 1931 and the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941, a number of photographers across Japan produced a versatile body of Surrealist work. In a pioneering study of their practice, Jelena Stojkovic draws on primary sources and extensive archival research and maps out art historical and critical contexts relevant to the apprehension of this rich photographic output, most of which is previously unseen outside of its country of origin. The volume is an essential resource in the fields of Surrealism and Japanese history of art, for researchers and students of historical avant-gardes and photography, as well as forreaders interested in visual culture.

Now back in stock: A collection of fabulous photographs by the foremost Surrealist artists.

Surreal digital photography is not only an enjoyable extension of many enthusiast’s repertoire, but is has firmly established a foothold in the world of art. This book reveals the latest developments in the field and demystifies the techniques used by modern surreal photographers, whether they favor SOOC (straight out of the camera) or sophisticated digital manipulations. Breaking down the shooting and editing process for any reader to follow and emulate, this book provides step-by-step instructions for creating extraordinary scenes. With contributions from numerous artists—including Natalie Dybisz, Jon Jacobsen and Dariusz Klimczak— readers will be able to explore many different artistic styles from impossible landscapes to unsettling portraits.

Lee Miller (1907-1977) was an American-born Surrealist and war photographer who, through her role as a model for Vogue magazine, became the apprentice of Man Ray in Paris, and later one of the few women war correspondents to cover the Second World War from the frontline. Her comprehensive understanding of art enabled her to photograph vivid representations of Europe at war – the changing gender roles of women in war work, the destruction caused by enemy fire during the London Blitz, and the horrors of the concentration camps – that embraced and adapted the principles and methods of Surrealism. This book examines how Miller’s war photographs can be interpreted as ‘surreal documentary’ combining a surrealist sensibility with a need to inform. Each chapter contains a close analysis of specific photographs in a generally chronological study with a thematic focus, using comparisons with other photographers, documentary artists, and Surrealists, such as Margaret Bourke-White, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, George Rodger, Cecil Beaton, Bill Brandt, Henry Moore, Humphrey Jennings and Man Ray. In addition, Miller’s photographs are explored through André Breton’s theory of ‘convulsive beauty’ – his credence that any subject, no matter how horrible, may be interpreted as art – and his notion of the ‘marvellous’.

Taking its departure point from the 1933 surrealist photographs of ?involuntary sculptures? by Brassa?nd Dal?Found Sculpture and Photography from Surrealism to Contemporary Art offers fresh perspectives on the sculptural object by relating it to both surrealist concerns with chance and the crucial role of photography in framing the everyday. This collection of essays questions the nature of sculptural practice, looking to forms of production and reproduction that blur the boundaries between things that are made and things that are found. One of the book?s central themes is the interplay of presence and absence in sculpture, as it is highlighted, disrupted, or multiplied through photography?s indexical nature. The essays examine the surrealist three-dimensional object, its relation to and transformation through photographs, as well as the enduring legacies of such concerns for the artwork?s materiality and temporality in performance and conceptual practices from the 1960s through the present. Found Sculpture and Photography sheds new light on the shifts in status of the art object, challenging the specificity of visual practices, pursuing a radical interrogation of agency in modern and contemporary practices, and exploring the boundaries between art and everyday life.

These sixteen illustrated essays present an important revision of surrealism by focusing on the works of women surrealists and their strategies to assert positions as creative subjects within a movement that regarded woman primarily as an object of masculine desire or fear.While the male surrealists attacked aspects of the bourgeois order, they reinforced the traditional patriarchal image of woman. Their emphasis on dreams, automatic writing, and the unconscious reveal some of the least inhibited masculine fantasies. The first resistance to the male surrealists' projection of the female figure arose in the writings and paintings of marginalized woman artists and writers associated with Surrealism. The essays in this collection explore the complexity of these women's works, which simultaneously employ and subvert the dominant discourse of male surrealists. Essays What Do Little Girls Dream Of: The Insurgent Writing of Gis�le Prassinos • Finding What You Are Not Looking For • From D�jeuner en fourrure to Caroline: Meret Oppenheim's Chronicle of Surrealism • Speaking with Forked Tongues: "Male" Discourse in "Female" Surrealism? • Androgyny: Interview with Meret Oppenheim • The Body Subversive: Corporeal Imagery in Carrington, Prassinos, and Mansour • Identity Crises: Joyce Mansour's Narratives • Joyce Mansour and Egyptian Mythology • In the Interim: The Constructivist Surrealism of Kay Sage • The Flight from Passion in Leonora Carrington's Literary Work • Beauty and/Is the Beast: Animal Symbology in the Work of Leonora Carrington, Remedio Varo, and Leonor Fini • Valentine, Andr�, Paul et les autres, or the Surrealization of Valentine Hugo • Refashioning the World to the Image of Female Desire: The Collages of Aube Ell�ou�t • Eileen Agar • Statement by Dorothea Tanning

"This anthology investigates books that juxtapose photographs and written language (photo-texts), considering a variety of examples from America, Britain, Canada, and France. Ranging from Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Marble Faun to Michael Ondaatje's postmodern novel Coming Through Slaughter and Edward Said's postdocumentary After the Last Sky, the contributors' analyses address photo-textuality's implications for representation and its cultural contexts. A truly interdisciplinary collection, Photo-Textualities features contributors who work in literary studies (English, romance languages), as well as contributors who work in media studies (film, graphic arts)." "Photo-Textualities invigorates critical inquiry with its range of literary and photographic genres, including photo-texts that elude genre classification. Besides documentary and biography, nonfiction literary genres include autobiography and travelogue. The range of photographic genres extends to landscapes, portraiture, documentary, tourist snapshots, and media images, as well as to the standard photo-textual forms of published album and photo-essay."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Taking its name and its departure point from the 1933 Surrealist photographs of Brassaï and Dalí, Found Sculpture and Photography from Surrealism to Contemporary Art brings a unique Surrealist inflection to the rethinking of the sculptural object. This collection of essays questions the nature of sculptural practice, looking to forms of production and reproduction that blur the boundaries between things that are made and things that are found.