In Montparnasse
  • Published: 17 September 2019
  • ISBN: 9780241976609
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $24.99

In Montparnasse

The Emergence of Surrealism in Paris, from Duchamp to Dali

Formats & editions
EBook
2 Aug 2018
Paperback
17 Sep 2019
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An absorbing, gossipy account of the birth of Surrealism and the painters, writers, and artists who lived, loved and worked in 1920s Paris

During the 1920s, in the Parisian neighbourhood of Montparnasse, a unique flowering of avant-garde artistic creativity became the cradle of Dada and Surrealism. In this crowd biography, Sue Roe tells the story - from Duchamp to Dali, via Man Ray and Max Ernst - of the salons and cafes, alliances and feuds, love affairs and scandals, successes and suicides of one of the most important and long-lasting artistic achievements of the twentieth century.
  • Published: 17 September 2019
  • ISBN: 9780241976609
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $24.99
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About the author

Sue Roe

Sue Roe is a freelance writer and teacher. A former Lecturer at the University of East Anglia, she is the author of a novel, Estella, Her Expectation, a collection of poems, The Spitfire Factory, and Writing and Gender: Virginia Woolf's Writing Practice. She is also co-editor of the Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf, and her most recent book is the widely praised Gwen John: A Life.

Also by Sue Roe

In Montmartre
The Private Lives Of The Impressionists
Gwen John
See all

Praise for In Montparnasse

Roe is a talented writer, fascinated by la vie Boheme . . . She can find phrases that perfectly capture the feeling of a neighbourhood

John Carey, Sunday Times

Brings together some of the chief protagonists in one of the 20th century's most inventive art movements. A vivid read

Radio Times

Sue Roe describes with plenty of colour how surrealism was born and developed in Montparnasse . . . Roe marshals [the figures behind dada and surrealism] with great finesse

The Times

Enjoyable, engaging, rollicking - the storytelling is lively

Spectator, on ‘In Montmartre’

Admirable. What an eye for art Roe has. Brilliant

Guardian, on ‘In Montmartre’

An elegant synthesis of complex material... it excels: Roe is a skilled and graceful writer.

The Telegraph on 'In Montmartre'

Lively and engaging... in her entertaining, ingeniously structured account Roe brings Montmartre's heyday back to life.

The Sunday Times on 'In Montmartre'

[Roe]skilfully weaves her descriptions of artworks into her romp through the artists' struggles and fractious relationships.

The Times on 'In Montmartre'

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

New Statesman on 'In Montmartre'

With evocative imagery Roe sketches out the intensely visual spectacle on which Montmartre's artistic community was able to draw

Financial Times on 'In Montmartre'

Highly colourful . . . they're all here, the big names of the time - behaving badly, and, at times, quite madly too

Rachel Cooke, Observer

She vividly charts the birth of surrealism . . . a tale rich in absurdity and outlandish characters, from Cocteau and Max Ernst to Dali and Picasso

Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times
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