Dreams of Desire 46 (Simone Kahn)

Man Ray-Simone Kahn 1927

Simone Kahn, pictured above with a Vanuatu figure was the first Mrs Breton (for details of Andre Breton second marriage see Dreams of Desire 16 (Jacqueline and Frida), was born into a wealthy Jewish family in Peru in 1897.

She married Andre in 1921 and was involved in the trance events that was instrumental in the formation of Surrealism. Andre Breton remarked that she was a living encyclopedia and was the only one of the Surrealists who had read Marx’s Das Kapital in full.

Their marriage which lasted ten years was rather turbulent, as although both believed in the idea of a Free Union, the reality was somewhat different and neither was immune from jealously. However after their divorce in 1931 and despite further marriages they continued to correspond for the next three decades.