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Surreal Lovers recounts the lives and loves of a group of artists and writers during the most creative and catastrophic of times. It centers on the life of the strikingly seductive painter Max Ernst, with a focus on the women he loved and who loved him. The enigmatic Ernst had profound relationships with some of the most innovative and creative women of the era. They include Leonora Carrington, Peggy Guggenheim, Dorothea Tanning, Luise Straus, Marie-Berthe Aurenche, Leonor Fini, Meret Oppenheim and Gala Dalí.

Each of them was audacious and daring in her own inimitable way; all lived full lives influenced by the vanguard ideas of the time. In describing the work and achievements of these women, Surreal Lovers emphasizes the human element in their entwined lives – what usually gets omitted from official art histories.

Interweaving their interactions with Ernst, each other and their circle that included Lee Miller, Man Ray, Andre Breton, Marcel Duchamp and Chaim Soutine, this book spans the volatile days of Dada and the heyday of Surrealism in the 1920s until its demise in 1940s New York. Their saga contains episodes of deep friendship and searing passion, when they made great art and lost, found and abandoned one another as the upheaval of two world wars shredded their dreams and scattered them around the globe…

Margaret Hooks is an Irish writer who has written extensively on the life and work of artists among them Tina Modotti, Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington, Edward Weston, Max Ernst and Edward James. Her books include the award-winning biography Tina Modotti: Photographer & Revolutionary, Frida Kahlo: Portraits of an Icon and Surreal Eden: Edward James & Las Pozas. Her writing has appeared in ARTnews, BOMB, Afterimage, Vogue, Aperture, Elle, The Guardian and The Observer Magazine. Her most recent book, Surreal Lovers: Eight Women Integral to the Life of Max Ernst, provided her with the opportunity to write about the lives of fascinating women, such as Leonora Carrington, Peggy Guggenheim and Dorothea Tanning, during the most exciting of times.