Birthday. Lebenserinnerungen.

by Dorothea Tanning

The author, an artist herself, recounts her life with her husband, Max Ernst, the surrealist painter

Genres: Art, Memoir, Nonfiction

260 pages, Paperback

First published December 12, 1986

About the author

Dorothea Tanning was an American painter, printmaker, sculptor and writer. She has also designed sets and costumes for ballet and theatre.

Reviews

[Sketchbook · Rating 4 out of 5]

"You can laugh at the past," says Dorothea Tanning,
"you cannot laugh at the future." Her memoir (no
'ghost' for Tanning) of life with Max Ernst in postwar
Paris and America (she was his 4th wife) is an original
"rumination, souvenir" of a surrealist vision.

This adventurous artist from Galesburg, Ill, fragments
Time & Memory as she recalls Andre Breton, Roland
Penrose, Man Ray. Essentially hers is a personal
story and, as one critic said, "a poetic evocation in
which dream and reality can mingle."

The Left Bank was "a perpetual carnival where disguise
and discretion are one and the same." It contrasts with
a lengthy retreat in Sedona, Arizona, where "an electrical
storm could hang a ball of white fire in the doorway."
Modest luxuries - telling your best ideas to a dog or
crying for fun, she adds - make the small life big.
-------
Tanning later put this material into a 2d memoir,
"Between Lives."

[Scott · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'd wanted to read this one since the late 80's, but never got around to it. Now it's long out of print and the publisher doesn't even exist anymore. Well, I finally read it and I hated it. I really hated it. How can a book about being married to Max Ernst suck so badly? Tanning's prose is excruciating. But I've read nothing but positive things about it, so it must be me.

[Maeve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dorothea Tanning was a native of Galesburg, Illinois. She became a visual artist and also a pretty amazing writer. Married to Max Ernst, Tanning had an eclectic group of artist friends. I watched the movie Lee about one of those artists, Lee Miller, at the same time. What an interesting period in history and in art.

[Jade Aslain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dorothea Tanning sure can write