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The Surrealist and the Photographer: Roland Penrose and Lee
Miller
Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, through 9 September
This year, Edinburgh has again proved itself as a leading centre
of surrealist art. Under the former Keeper, Douglas Hall, a tradition
was developed which has flourished significantly under his successor,
Richard Calvacoressi. The Dean Gallery now includes the Gabriel
Keiller Collection (incorporating both literature and artworks)
with its permanent display. This exhibition now enhances that tradition.
Sir Roland Penrose, as he subsequently was to be honoured, spent
his life escaping from the manacles of an East Anglian, Quaker,
upbringing. Lee Miller married him in l947, transforming his psyche
and self-confidence into a truly surreal realisation. Perhaps we
should wait on, to see the film of her (and his) life that Nicole
Kidman will undoubtedly get to make. It is the brilliant, forceful
photojournalist jeep driver who covered the advance of the American
Sixth Army into the last year of war (and Paris) who married the
privileged, reticent intellectual, who will reveal all. Surely,
she will be played by Kidman in the movie. But who will play the
self-effacing Penrose? Olivier, Richardson and Gielgud are all gone.
Could it be Dennis Hopper?
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