Rosemary Sullivan: Villa Air-Bel

October 30, 2006 / 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm

McNally Robinson Booksellers
52 Prince St.
(between Lafayette and Mulberry)
New York, NY
From their website:

When Paris was beset by spies, collaborators, and the Gestapo during WW II, people like Andre Breton, Max Ernst, Victor Serge, Marc Chagall, Consuelo de Saint-Exupery, Remedios Varo, Benjamin Peret, and scores of other cultural elite lived in constant fear. But there was sanctuary to be found in an estate, called Villa Air-Bel, outside Marseille. Financed by the Emergency Rescue Committee, a private American relief organization, and staffed by an eclectic and committed group, the estate became a vibrant artistic salon, home to lively debates and clandestine affairs, to Sunday art auctions and subversive surrealist games. By examining the diaries, memoirs, and letters of the individuals involved, Rosemary Sullivan uncovers their private worlds and the web of relationships they developed as they struggled to survive.