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Surrealism and the Tarot: A Love Story
You may know Salvador Dalí's striking surrealist tarot deck, or Leonora Carrington's recently discovered tarot designs, perhaps even André Breton's mysterious novel Arcane 17, inspired by The Star card. These well-known examples hint at a much deeper story — the rich and complex relationship between Surrealism and the tarot.
The surrealists turned to tarot cards for divination, certainly, yet this represents only one facet of their extensive and versatile century-long engagement with tarot. In surrealist work and practice we find the tarot as oracular tools, maps for initiatory journeys of self-discovery, countercultural objects, and aesthetic inspiration. Many surrealists' radical imaginations took tarot sets or individual cards as starting or reference points for new creative work in literature, film, painting, and display design, among others.
Surrealism and the Tarot: A Love Story is the first book to explore these issues in depth. This groundbreaking and extensively illustrated collection brings together leading scholars to illuminate a fascinating but understudied aspect of surrealist practice. Leonora Carrington, Ithell Colquhoun, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Remedios Varo, Roberto Matta, Penny Slinger, Jorge Comacho, Marie Wilson and Victor Brauner are among the many surrealist luminaries discussed in this volume. Drawing on previously unexplored archives and featuring rare illustrations, this collection reveals how tarot became a key catalyst for surrealist creativity and spiritual exploration.
The surrealists turned to tarot cards for divination, certainly, yet this represents only one facet of their extensive and versatile century-long engagement with tarot. In surrealist work and practice we find the tarot as oracular tools, maps for initiatory journeys of self-discovery, countercultural objects, and aesthetic inspiration. Many surrealists' radical imaginations took tarot sets or individual cards as starting or reference points for new creative work in literature, film, painting, and display design, among others.
Surrealism and the Tarot: A Love Story is the first book to explore these issues in depth. This groundbreaking and extensively illustrated collection brings together leading scholars to illuminate a fascinating but understudied aspect of surrealist practice. Leonora Carrington, Ithell Colquhoun, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Remedios Varo, Roberto Matta, Penny Slinger, Jorge Comacho, Marie Wilson and Victor Brauner are among the many surrealist luminaries discussed in this volume. Drawing on previously unexplored archives and featuring rare illustrations, this collection reveals how tarot became a key catalyst for surrealist creativity and spiritual exploration.
212 pages, Hardcover
Published November 1, 2025
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