Now I have finished reading this book I notice that the subtitle is very apt. Whitney Chadwick has done a lot of research and certainly adds to my biographical knowledge of the people in the book, who are listed as characters in a drama at the start of it.
What she doesn’t do is say much about their art beyond some description.
Occasionally Chadwick goes over the top in giving interpretations of relationships from looking at photographs of people.
Writing of Frida and Diego Rivera she does not account for their devotion to Stalin or mention how Frida childishly writes Stalin’s name in big letters repeatedly in her journal-which I found on purchasing a facsimile.
What Chadwick is good at is evoking the atmosphere say of occupied Jersey or the blitz in London.
My interest in Claude Cahun was roused as I found out the extent of her brave continued propaganda distribution of anti nazi messages in Jersey, which lead to her solitary confinement in prison. I purchased a further book about her that will be published in April.
There are complicated relationships involving changes of partners, lesbianism and friendships.
Women managed to refuse a role simply as the muses desired by male surrealists and made their own work in art, writing and photography. World War Two affected everyone deeply.
It’s not a great illuminating work about these women’s contribution to the history of art but it’s a book full of biographical detail that is interesting if you are already interested.
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