Sue Roe - In Montparnasse: The Emergence of Surrealism in Paris, from Duchamp to Dali

Praise for In Montmartre:

Lively and engaging in her entertaining, ingeniously structured account Roe brings Montmartres heyday back to life Sunday Times

Arresting, admirable, brilliant Guardian

An elegant synthesis of complex material it excels Daily Telegraph

Roe skilfully weaves her descriptions of artworks into her romp through the artists struggles and fractious relationships The Times

A colourful narrative describing the travails and triumphs of an equally colourful cast New Statesman

With evocative imagery Roe sketches out the intensely visual spectacle on which Montmartres artistic community was able to draw Financial Times

Sue Roe knows every inch of Montmartre then and now. This is a reliable, entertaining guide to the period Daily Mail

Sue Roe is the author of several books, including the bestselling crowd biographies In Montmartre and The Private Lives of the Impressionists, and a widely praised work on the artist Gwen John. She is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow. She lives in Brighton.

Sue Roe

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IN MONTPARNASSE

The Emergence of Surrealism in Paris, from Duchamp to Dal

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Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

First published by Fig Tree 2018

Published in Penguin Books 2019

Copyright Sue Roe, 2018

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Jacket image Sonia Delaunay, Le Bal Bullier, 1913 (oil on mattress fabric) 97 x 390 cm, Muse National dArt Moderne, Paris. Inventory number AM 3507 P. Purchase of the State, 1954.

The List of Illustrations constitute an extension of this copyright page

ISBN: 978-0-241-97659-3

. Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2, 1912 (oil on canvas), Marcel Duchamp (18871968)/Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania, PA, USA/The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950/Bridgeman Images. Association Marcel Duchamp/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2018

. The Song of Love, 1914 (oil on canvas), Giorgio de Chirico (18881978)/Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA/Photo Boltin Picture Library/Bridgeman Images. DACS 2018

. Apolinre Enameled, 191617 (gouache and graphite on painted tin, mounted on cardboard), Marcel Duchamp (18871968)/Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania, PA, USA/The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950/Bridgeman Images. Association Marcel Duchamp/ ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2018

. Jean Cocteau, 1917 (oil on canvas), Modigliani, Amedeo (18841920)/Private Collection/Bridgeman Images

. Jeanne Hbuterne (18981920), wife and muse of Amedeo Modigliani, here young c. 1916/PVDE/Bridgeman Images

. Belle Haleine Eau de Voilette (cardboard box and brushed-glass perfume bottle), Duchamp, Marcel (18871968)/Private Collection/Photo Christies Images/Bridgeman Images. Association Marcel Duchamp/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2018

. Title page of Parade, ballet by Erik Satie (18661925), theme by Jean Cocteau (18891973) and with set and costumes by Pablo Picasso (18881973), 1917 (20th century)/Prazska Konzervator, Prague/De Agostini Picture Library/A. Dagli Orti/Bridgeman Images

. Aphorisms and puns from Rrose Slavy, 1939 (litho), Duchamp, Marcel (18871968)/Private Collection/Bridgeman Images. Association Marcel Duchamp/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2018

. The Great Forest, 1927 (oil on canvas), Ernst, Max (18911976)/Kunstmuseum, Basel, Switzerland/Bridgeman Images. ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2018

. Monument to the Birds, 1927 (oil on canvas), Ernst, Max (18911976)/Muse Cantini, Marseille, France/Bridgeman Images. ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2018

. Flowers and Shells, 1929 (oil on canvas), Ernst, Max (18911976)/Muse National dArt Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France/Bridgeman. ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2018

. Illustration from La Femme 100 ttes, 1929 (engraving) (b/w photo), Ernst, Max (18911976)/Bibliothque Nationale, Paris, France/Bridgeman Images. ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2018

. Untitled, 1920 (photographic collage), Ernst, Max (18911976)/Menil Collection, Houston, TX, USA/Bridgeman Images. ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2018

. Page from lAvant-Scne featuring Entracte, by Ren Clair, 1968 (litho), Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, French School (20th century)/Private Collection/Bridgeman Images

. The Persistence of Memory, 1931 (oil on canvas), Dal, Salvador (190489)/Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA/Bridgeman Images. Salvador Dal, Fundaci Gala-Salvador Dal, DACS 2018

. Surrealist Object Functioning Symbolically (1931/73) (shoe, black marble, white marble, photographs, clay, hair, glass, wax, wood, yellow metal, mixed media), Dal, Salvador (190489)/The Art Institute of Chicago, IL, USA/Through prior gift of Mrs Gilbert W. Chapman/Bridgeman Images. Salvador Dal, Fundaci Gala-Salvador Dal, DACS 2018

. Marcel Duchamp with his brothers, Jacques Villon (left) and Raymond Duchamp Villon (right) in Puteaux in 1913/Tallandier/Bridgeman Images

. The surrealist group in a plane in an amusement park. (Left to right): Andr Breton (18961966), Robert Desnos (190045), Joseph Delteil (18941978), Simone Breton (18971980), Paul luard (18951952), Gala luard (18941982), Max Morise (19001973), Max Ernst (18911976) (b/w photo), French School (20th century)/Bibliothque Littraire Jacques Doucet, Paris, France/Archives Charmet/Bridgeman Images

. Jean Cocteau and Pablo Picasso with the Russian dancer Olga Khokhlova, Rome, 1917 (b/w photo), Italian Photographer (20th century)/Private Collection/Tallandier/Bridgeman Images

. Salvador Dal and Gala (b/w photo)/PVDE/Bridgeman Images

Introducing painter and future conceptualist Marcel Duchamp, metaphysical painter Giorgio de Chirico and poet and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire artistic experimentation before the evolution of surrealism.

A female nude is walking downstairs, towards the (unseen) viewer waiting at the foot of the staircase. This is no ordinary painted nude. Part Futurist, part cubist, at first glance this early wood-coloured painting by Marcel Duchamp is an arrangement of lines and planes, joints and cantilevers, geometrically constructed. Still staring up at her, the viewer begins to make her out as she makes her way downstairs, head high, shoulders back, hips en avance, moving like a model; perhaps those forms at her feet are even garments she is stepping out of, kicked aside as she descends. We can see her cant we?

The young artist himself (twenty-four when he painted it, in January 1912) didnt think so. in my search for a technique to treat the subject of motion.

Nude No. 2 is more fluid Duchamp finessed the does not exist, or at least cannot be seen, since I discarded completely the naturalistic appearance of a nude, keeping only the abstract lines of some twenty different static positions in the successive action of descending. Oh, but for the viewer she does exist, emerging from the artists architectural draughtsmanship like an articulated mannequin coming to life. The stepping motion animates her, rendering her at the same time geometrical and dreamlike both an articulated wooden construction and uncannily super-real.