69 Surrealists

Many books have been written about the art of the surrealists, but in this volume Desmond Morris focuses instead on the artists themselves and the way they behaved. What were their backgrounds, their personalities, their weaknesses and their strengths? How did their conduct their sexual and social lives? These are the questions that this book sets out to investigate in a series of sixty-five short biographical sketches. Some of the artists were out-and-out surrealists throughout their entire adult lives. Others had an intense surrealist phase but at other times were also involved in different art forms. Some were viewed as surrealists, but not by themselves. In addition to the 69 discussed here, 31 others - the main characters central to the movement - will be dealt with in a later volume to be published by Thames & Hudson.