Valentine Penrose
| Valentine Penrose | |
|---|---|
| Born | Valentine Boué 1 January 1898 Mont-de-Marsan, Landes, France |
| Died | 7 August 1978 (aged 80) Chiddingly, East Sussex, England |
| Occupation | Poet, author, collagist |
| Nationality | French |
| Spouse | Roland Penrose (m. 1925; div. 1937) |
Valentine Penrose (née Boué; 1 January 1898 – 7 August 1978), was a French surrealist poet, author and collagist.
Valentine Boué was born in 1898 to a military family in Mont-de-Marsan, Landes, France. The family moved to Paris when she was very young.
In 1925 she married the English artist, historian and poet Roland Penrose (1900-1984) and joined the community of surrealists based in Paris, Mougins and England. They were divorced in 1937, but met again in London during the war, after which she lived half her time with her ex-husband and his second wife, the American photojournalist Lee Miller. This arrangement continued for the rest of her life.
She joined the French Army in 1940.
She died on 7 August 1978 in Chiddingly, East Sussex, England, in the house of her ex-husband.
Valentine Penrose wrote surrealist poetry, although she is perhaps best known for her biography of the serial killer Elizabeth Báthory (1560-1614). Her poetry reflects her experience of automatic writing, collage and painting techniques such as Max Ernst’s frottage and Wolfgang Paalen’s fumage.
Penrose was interested in female mysticism, alchemy and the occult. She met Count Galarza Santa Clara in Egypt, a master of the esoteric, and made several visits to his ashram in India. In 1936 she made an extended visit to India with the poet and painter Alice Paalen (later Alice Rahon). They become very close and their relationship is shown in their poetry from 1936 to about 1945.
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