History of the Surrealist Movement

Rating:
Summary: Astonishing and thorough history of Surrealism
Review: This book is awesome. I've purchased histories of Surrealism before--all of which are now desperately out-dated and out of print besides...including the great Abrams book on Dada and Surrealism. This book beats them all. For one, it covers not just the Surrealists in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s, but examines the spread of the movement to the US, Africa, Japan, India, and South America during the 1940s-1960s. For two, it deals with all media: painting, sculpture, poetry, philosophy, fiction, film, etc. For three, it features biographies of all the major stars, and also of all the minor players in their orbits. For four, it includes 1000 illustrations--many of them documentary and never published before this book was originally released in the French edition, as well as many many color plates scattered throughout the text. A beautiful production, and a terrific text by Durozoi, who was linked to the Surrealists in the 1950s and 1960s by virtue of his involvement with philosophy.