Jacqueline Lamba: The Forgotten Surrealist

This new biography repositions Jacqueline Lamba as one of the pioneers and finest exponents of Surrealist painting.

Jacqueline Lamba (1910-93) defied categorization. She is remembered only as the wife of André Breton, French poet, founder of Surrealism, but she was not just his spouse, she was a painter in her own right. A long overdue revaluation of her life and contribution to Surrealism has brought her out of the shadow into her rightful place.

After divorcing Breton, she was married for 14 years to American sculptor David Hare. Lamba's extraordinary life brought her into contact with many leading artists of the period: Leonora Carrington, Alberto Giacometti, Roberto Matta, Dora Maar, Yves Tanguy, Pablo Picasso, and Diego Rivera. And as Salomon Grimberg here reveals for the first time in previously unpublished letters, she had an affair with Frida Kahlo.

Thanks to exclusive interviews with people who knew her throughout her life, Grimberg uncovers Lamba's complex personality: often impossible to deal with, she had a habit of destroying those of her paintings with which she was not completely satisfied. But enough works survive to make an impressive oeuvre, and Grimberg interprets her painting with an authority that makes this biography essential reading for anyone interested, not just in feminism and Surrealism, but in the whole history of art in the twentieth century.

• Written by an art expert previously the author of celebrated works on Frida Kahlo.
• Repositions Jacqueline Lamba as a leading light of 20th-century art rather than a footnote to it.
• Plate section features numerous high-quality images of Lamba's finest extant works as well as photographs of Lamba with Breton, Dora Maar, Picasso, and others.
• Salomon Grimberg lives in Texas.

Author: Salomon Grimberg
Publisher: Merrell
Published: 04/07/2026
Pages: 224
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.72lbs
Size: 9.40h x 6.80w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9781858947266

About the Author
Grimberg, Salomon: - Salomon Grimberg writes on various aspects of the creative process. He co-edited Frida Kahlo's Das Gesamtwerk (1988), co-authored Remedios Vero's catalogue raisonné (1994), and has written numerous articles and essays for museum exhibition catalogues. He has curated shows on Leonora Carrington, Frida Kahlo, Nickolas Muray, and the 2001 travelling retrospective exhibition Jacqueline Lamba: In Spite of Everything, Spring. He is the author of Frida Kahlo: The Still Lifes (Merrell, 2008), Frida Kahlo Song of Herself (Merrell, 2008), Frida Kahlo, I Will Never Forget You (2004), and Nickolas Muray, Portrait of a Photographer (2013). He is contributing editor to the Woman's Art Journal and is working on the authorized catalogue raisonné of Leonora Carrington's paintings.