Wednesday 3 November 2010

yesterday's muse # 22 - nusch eluard



Nusch Éluard was born Maria Benz in Mulhouse (then part of the German empire), in June of 1906. her father gave her the nickname Nusch, which would stick with her throughout her life. Nusch would become the celebrated muse of painters, poets and photographers in the 1930s and 40s, and would inspire some of that era's greatest art.



Picasso painted several portraits of her; she was photographed by Man Ray, Brassaï, Lee Miller and Dora Maar, and in 1930, Nusch met surrealist poet Paul Éluard, whom she married four years later. Paul Éluard's Facile, a collection of poems, was written for Nusch, who would later produce surrealist art of her own, primarily in the form of photomontage.




Nusch was known for her quiet, sensual charm and free spirit - a spirit that disappeared all too quickly when she collapsed in a Paris street in 1946, and died suddenly and unexpectedly of a brain hemorrhage.


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