Valentine Penrose

Valentine Penrose ( Boué; 1 January 1898 – 7 August 1978) was a French surrealist poet, author, and collagist.

Life and career Valentine Boué was born in 1898 to a military family in Mont-de-Marsan, Landes, France. The family moved to Paris when she was very young.

In 1925, she married the English artist, historian and poet Roland Penrose (1900–1984) and joined the community of surrealists based in Paris, Mougins and England. The marriage was never consummated. Boué and her husband moved to Spain in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War. In the same year she joined the workers militia in Spain to defend the revolution. Valentine and Roland had different viewpoints on traditions in India, Eastern thought, and philosophy, which all led to a growing distance between the two.

She joined the French Army in 1940. Penrose was involved in the publication of Andre Breton's inaugural issue of La Révolution surréaliste; she was one of eight other women who were involved with the journal. Her first publication in the journal was a response to the 1929 "Inquiry on love" in La Révolution surréaliste no. 12. For a female artist of her time it was unconventional for a woman to illustrate such erotic and violent works. The difference between Ernst and Penrose is that Ernst's work represents an over-dramatic dream sequence with dysfunctional and bizarre relationships whereas Penrose's illustrates the travels of two women and their erotic adventures.

Penrose was interested in female mysticism, Eastern philosophy, alchemy and the occult. In 1929, during a trip to Egypt, she met the Spanish archaeologist and professor of philosophy , knows as Count Galarza de Santa Clara, a master of the esoteric, and made several visits to his ashram in India. She studied Sanskrit while in India. It is believed that the two had a relationship while in India based on the lesbian attributes present in their work at that time. After their trip in India, they didn't see each other again.

From 1937, she started writing on lesbianism, always with the same lovers: Emily and Rubia. This dominates Martha's Opéra (1945), and Dons des Féminines (1951). The works in Dons des féminines were greatly inspired by Alice Rohan.

She collaborated on a few pieces including London Bulletin, VVV, Dyn, and Free Unions. Her husband, Roland Penrose, was a primarily visual artist who was a notable figure within the Surrealist movement while associating Valentine Penrose with other Surrealist artists. Much of Valentine Penrose's art was created using traditional art and collage images which were sourced from common publications such as journals, catalogues and books. Her portfolio includes various collages and a collage novel entitled Dons des Féminines, which incorporated her literary background in its composition. Dons des Féminines has been called the "archetypal surrealist book" since it uses compositional elements that are expected of Surrealist art. The format is fragmented and uses bilingual poetry in combination with the visual imagery of the collages to create disorientation and continuous translation. The images are arranged to create juxtapositions and lack of continuity and become increasingly complex. There are references to Penrose's other, more cohesive, literary work but the novel does not have a singular format. The background for the works is typically of natural scenery or a landscape in which foreign elements are added, sometimes symbolically to create paradoxes. The recurring themes throughout the novel are gender ambiguity, love and prophetic writing. Lesbian love, in particular, is an important theme in much of Penrose's work, but especially in Dons des féminines. Lesbian love is indeed a crucial theme in the book because it recounts the romantic escape of two women and their dreamlike adventures together. In addition, the author-collagist mentions the city of "Mytilene" to evoke the Sapphic island of Lesbos. This reference to the Mediterranean shows that exoticism is an important theme of the work, but also that Penrose inscribes herself into the Sapphic tradition of Renée Vivien, Natalie Barney or Charles Baudelaire to just a few emblematic figures.

Publications

French poetry

(Collages and poems by Valentine Penrose. One edition had additional illustrations by Pablo Picasso).

(Anthology of works of Valentine Penrose)

French prose

Works translated into English

(Translation of Erzsébet Báthory la Comtesse sanglante)

Filmography Penrose acted in the following films: L'Age d'Or (1930), directed by Luis Buñuel La Garoupe (1937), directed by Man Ray