Surrealism at 100

Also: A history of free time, Gauguin’s antics and art, Joseph Roth in Ukraine, Kazuo Ishiguro’s song lyrics, and more.

Pierre Roy, Le grand bateau (c. 1927). Source: ArtNet.

In a tidy and insufferable little column in The New York Times, Nina Siegal tells us that this year marks the 100th anniversary of surrealism. André Breton published his Surrealist Manifesto in 1924, you see, and several museums are planning to use the anniversary to run exhibits of surrealist works or artists.

What’s insufferable about the column? Well, it isn’t just that surrealism isn’t 100 years old. Guillaume Apollinaire first used the word in 1917 to describe Jean Cocteau and Erik Satie’s ballet Parade, for which Picasso had designed the set and costumes.