Artist of the Week: Surrealist Sorceress, Remedios Varo

You might say female Surrealists are having a bit of a moment. Our forgotten Parisian bohemian queen, Leonor Fini stole the show at Art Basel’s 2023 fair in Miami, and this week, a painting by Britain’s lost surrealist, Leonora Carrington, sold at Sotheby’s for a record $28.5 million. We still have a few women Surrealists…

The Vault

Exotic Dancing on the Colonial Bandwagon

When I first saw a black and white photograph of Ruth St. Denis, I was instantly seduced by her, just as many audiences of the early 20th century were too. Who was this female chameleon from another era dressed as an Egyptian Goddess, a Hindu deity, a gypsy princess, a geisha or even as an Indian peacock? Ruth St. Denis in the…

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Her Severed Head was Kept in a Paris Museum. Then it Disappeared.

There are many reasons to tell the story of Mata Hari – an extravagant icon of femininity, famous burlesque performer, World War I spy, and “collector” of high one standing lovers – her life reads like a harlequin novel. But arguably one of the most curious (and morbid) anecdotes of her life occurred after her…

He Made the Most Beautiful Films of All Time and They Put Him in Prison For It

It was a pretty epic Round Table, albeit one held in vain. Federico Fellini, Jean-Luc Godard, Yves-Saint Laurent and other creative power-houses had joined forces with one impossible goal: to save Sergei Parajanov. “In the temple of cinema, there are images, light and reality,” said Godard, “Sergei Parajanov was the master of that temple.” Locked up…

Her Legs Should’ve been Registered as Deadly Weapons

The first time I saw this Cyd Charisse dancing was on a VHS copy of Singing in the Rain that I’d been gleefully gifted by my parents. With a total of just seven minutes airtime and not a single line of dialogue spoken, she stole the show as Debbie Reynold’s mysterious stand-in; a nameless leading…

Django’s Journey: The Making of the Nomadic King of French Swing

Django Reinhardt was a legendary jazz musician and considered by some the greatest guitarist who ever lived, even more so when you find out he did it all with two fingers. He began as a nomadic busker before becoming a virtuoso and then a romanticised Parisian sepia memory, who still calls out in rolling arpeggios…

Keeping up with Kitty, the First Woman to be Famous for Being Famous

The sex industry was one of 18th century Britain’s most lucrative enterprises, and the women and girls at the centre of this trade enraptured the nation, endlessly feeding society with tantalising tales from behind closed doors. But all too often, their voices have been left down the back of history’s sofa, largely due to the…

I Wish I Could’ve Partied with the Prince of Saint-Germain

If you were living in Paris during the years that followed World War II and liked to party, you’d better have known Boris Vian. In 1950, he wrote the original guidebook to bohemian Paris and pioneered a movement which brought back the city’s “joie de vivre” that had been lost during the German occupation. Along with Jean Paul-Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Boris…

The Artful Spy who Stopped Hitler from Emptying the Louvre

At first glance she looks like just another bookish art historian in matronly 1940s garb – a most unlikely superhero. But Rose Antonia Maria Valland was a lone female spy who, during WW2, tirelessly and valiantly put her life on the line for the love of art, saving scores of looted works of art during Nazi…

Human Computer: The Forgotten Women’s Profession

For hundreds of years, the term “computer” was a job title for a human before machines took over the job, and in the late 19th century, computers weren’t just human, they were mostly women. An English Countess and Victorian mathematician, Ada Lovelace, is regarded as the first computer programmer and by World War II, American…