Surrealism in PhotographyBy Joshua Faulkner

Founding of the Movement• The idea was started off in the 1920’s by a French man called

Guillaume Apollinaire but was officially launched as a movement because of a publication of another poet called André Breton called ‘Manifesto of Surrealism’ in 1924. Surrealism is basically people’s imaginations gone wild, they don’t use the conventional snap shot of a person they create a more ‘dreamlike’ version of a picture.

Guillaume Apollinaire André Breton

Reactions Towards Movement• The original reaction to surrealism was basically ‘I don’t get it’

this had made no sense to the people looking at it, it was a conventional portrait or landscape. This caused people to try to open their minds and not look at a picture from left to right but use their imaginations.

Famous Photographers

Famous photographers in this field are:• Man Ray, who is one of most well known photographers in this

field• Maurice Tabard, he’s also a well known surrealist

photographer• Erwin Blumenfeld• Bill Brandt• And many more

Man Ray• Man Ray is one of the greats in surrealism, he was American

but did most of his work in France even though he did do some work in New York. One of his most famous pictures that he had taken was one of a woman with what looks like water droplets on her face near her eyes. There are many other photos which he has taken as well

Maurice Tabard• Maurice was a French man who studied photography in New

York. In the 1920’s he returned to France and continued his photography. However in world war 2 he had lost almost all, which included his entire negative archive, of his photographs soon after this he retired.

Erwin Blumenfeld• Erwin Blumenfeld was one of the most influential surrealist

photographers of the 20th century. He was born in Berlin, Germany and he began his career as an apprentice. Soon after this he was used to take photos for Vogue magazine and he’s taken a a lot of pictures using surrealism.