Unica Zürn

Unica Zürn (6 July 1916 – 19 October 1970) was a German author and artist. Zürn is remembered for her works of anagram poetry and automatic drawing and for her photographic collaborations with Hans Bellmer. An exhibition of Bellmer and Zürn's work took place at the Ubu Gallery in New York City in the spring of 2012.

Biography Born Nora Berta Unica Ruth Zürn, Unica was raised in a well-to-do family in Berlin-Grunewald. She idolized her mostly absent father, Willkomm Ralph Paul Zürn (b. 1874), a cavalry officer stationed in Africa (as well as a not particularly successful writer and editor), but had a contentious relationship with her mother, his third wife, Helene Pauline Heerdt. Unica also had an older brother, Horst (b. 1914), Her parents divorced in 1930 and she left school shortly after.

Zürn began working at the German Film Agency Universum Film AG (UFA) during the Third Reich. While the UFA produced all the Nazi propaganda films, Zürn primarily worked in a department creating animating commercials for products such as shoes and cigarettes. That same year she married a much older, wealthy man named Erich Laupenmühlen. Their first child, Katrin, was born in 1943 and their second, Christian, in 1945. and at times he seemed to conflate Zürn with the dolls of his obsession. Bellmer's intention was to transform the body into a landscape, altering the contours and creating additional "breasts" of flesh along the stomach. The couple frequented the city's surrealist and related artistic circles, becoming acquainted with Hans Arp, Victor Brauner, André Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Man Ray, Joyce Mansour, André Pieyre de Mandiargues, and others. In 1957 she was introduced to Henri Michaux, who she identified as the "Jasmine Man", a fantasy figure of her childhood. She fell deeply in love with Michaux, and she joined him in several of his experiments with mescaline. These drug experiences may have precipitated her first mental crisis. While she was encouraged to participate by these artists, her work is not simply an extension of their objectives. Artists such as Breton, Man Ray, Hans Arp, Joyce Mansour, Victor Brauner and Gaston Bachelard attended this exhibition and her work was well received. features human heads repeated and overlapping on the center of the page.

Published works Books Hexentexte (1954) Im Hinterhalt (1963) Dunkler Frühling (1967) Die Trompeten von Jericho (1968) Der Mann im Jasmin (1971) L'Homme-jasmin: impressions d'une malade mentale, trans. Ruth Henry and Robert Valançay (Gallimard, 1971). Das Haus der Krankheiten (Brinkmann & Bose und Lilith, 1986)

English translations Dark Spring, trans. Caroline Rupprecht (Exact Change, 2000). The Man of Jasmine and Other Texts, trans. Malcolm Green (Atlas, 1994). The House of Illnesses: Stories and Pictures from a Case of Jaundice, trans. Malcolm Green (Atlas, 1993). The Trumpets of Jericho, trans. Christina Svendsen (Wakefield Press, 2015).