Avis de Recherche : Valentine Penrose, �uvre et vie d'une artiste surr�aliste

Abstract

"Avis de Recherche: Valentine Penrose, vie et œuvre d’une artiste surréaliste" presents a new appreciation of the work of French artist, poet and novelist Valentine Penrose associated with the Surrealist Movement. This research offers the first detailed and accurate version of Valentine Penrose’s biography, which shows her relationship with artists and writers of her time, and her engagement during the Spanish Civil War and WWII. It compiles and publishes for the first time all her unpublished and ‘forgotten’ works with accompanying analyses for each piece. It demonstrates through the recording of her life and the exploration of her poetry how she exceeded different concepts – such as that of the Unconscious, automatic writing, and the use of dreams – established by André Breton in his Manifeste du Surréalisme, and how her deep interest for Eastern Philosophies modified her understanding of life, love and the artist’s way of creation. Because of the diversity and quality of her literary production – poetry, collages, historical novel / essay, short story, epistolary novel and theater play – this work aims to give to Valentine Penrose a place that has been for too long denied: a place in the History of French Literature.