Valentine Hugo - Surrealist Woman - Original Etching 1946

Valentine Hugo - Surrealist Woman - Original Etching Paris, Le Gerbier, 1946 Edition of 340 French painter and illustrator. Born 1897 in Boulogne-sur-Mer. Died 1968 in Paris. valentine hugo Studied painting in Paris; in 1919 married Jean Hugo, great-grandson of Victor Hugo. Collaborated with him on designs for the ballet including Jean Cocteau's Maries de la Tour Eiffel (1921); in 1926 executed twenty-four wood engravings after maquettes by Jean Hugo for Romeo and Juliette. Met the Surrealists around 1928 and actively participated in the movement between 1930 and 1936. The foremost illustrator of Paul Eluard's work, she first exhibited with the Surrealists in the Salon des Surindependants of 1933. Her many illustrations include: Lautreamont, Chants de Maldoror (1933); Achim d'Arnim's Contes Bizarres (1933); Rimbaud, Les Poetes de Sept Ans (1939); Eluard, Les Animaux et Leurs Hommes (1937). A retrospective exhibition of her work was held at the Centre Culturel Thibaud de Champagne, Troyes, in 1977. She was a wonderful, incisive artist who deserves to better well-know today than she is. Forget the surname; just think of the body of work... Exhibitions: Tenerife (1935), Copenhagen (1935), New York (1937), Tokyo (1937).