partners in surrealism

Spent my Saturday at the Legion of Honor taking in the surreal photography of Man Ray and his muse/artistic partner Lee Miller.  Miller, a former model, met Ray in Paris in the late 1920's, and she became a frequent subject of his photographs and eventually his lover. She had a background in photography as well, and together they explored the abstract and surrealist movement through then-radical photographic techniques like rayographs and solarization.

Lee followed the traditional paradigm of artist's muse with her striking beauty, but she was also a true artist in her own right. She spent years working as a fashion photographer and exposing the surreal in everyday life through her personal photography. When WWII broke out, she became the first female photojournalist to travel to the front lines and photograph the war for Vogue. The photos she took of the blitzkrieg and the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp have become some of the most iconic WWII images in history.

If you're in or around SF, I highly recommend seeing this exhibit. Now I just have to go see Gaultier at the De Young. And since this wouldn't be a proper post without a poorly executed photo collage, here ya go--a bunch of rad surrealist-approved apparel I found on the interwebs, some of which is potentially quite wearable. Yes, I'm talking about the black gloved bra as a top.

L to R: Jean-Charles de Castelbajac F/W 2011, Moschino Cheap & Chic lip print tunic dress (avail, here), Elsa Schiaparelli gloves, Nicholas Kirkwood flats, Salvador Dali ruby lips brooch, Elsa Schiaparelli shoe hat, Nicholas Kirkwood "pony" heel, Viktor & Rolf look from Spring 2010