Muses

The passionate world of the artist and his muse ranges from devotion to the sometimes tormented obsessions that have unlocked the creative genius of the most significant artists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For centuries artists have been inspired by muses to create their most poignant works of art and literature; this volume is a celebration of thirty-three such women and the artists they influenced. American Lee Miller was a successful model before traveling to Paris to become the apprentice, lover, and muse of surrealist artist and photographer Man Ray; Nancy Cunard, British writer, heiress, and political activist, was a lover to numerous members of the twentieth century's art and literary circles, including Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot; Parisian-born artist and poet Dora Maar had a profound influence on her infamous lover, Pablo Picasso. While the lives of these women were dissimilar in most aspects, they shared the ability to awaken fervor within some of the greatest artists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and to influence the work of their Pygmalion painters, writers, or photographers. The vision of the artist and his muse remains an integral part of our notion of artistic creation, and the collaboration of these interwoven destinies continues to fascinate historians, art-appreciators, feminists, and general readers alike. Author Farid Abdelouahab recounts the stories of thirty-three women who, through their temperament, beauty, talent, and pure magnetism, enthralled society's artistic geniuses and thus inspired the creation of some of the greatest works of the past centuries.