FROM THE PUBLISHER

In its heyday, Farley Farm, the home of American photographer Lee Miller and British artist Roland Penrose in Sussex, southern England, represented one of the most important collections of modern art in Britain, with a list of visitors that reads like a Who's Who of twentieth-century artists -- from Pablo Picasso and Max Ernst, Man Ray and Joan Miro, to Paul Eluard and Henry Moore. In this beautifully illustrated book, Miller's and Penrose's son, Antony Penrose, opens the door of Farley Farm to allow a rare glimpse inside a remarkable house, boasting a superb art collection and serving for over thirty years as the home of two talented artists at the forefront of the Surrealist movement.

Famed for her beauty, Lee Miller was a former lover and pupil of the Surrealist photographer Man Ray. Her work for Vogue in New York, Paris and London -- first as a model, then as a photographer and later as a war correspondent -- established her as an uncompromising photographer of international repute. Her post-war years are noted for her portraits of artists, many of whom were photographed at Farley Farm. Today her work is still exhibited and admired worldwide.

Roland Penrose studied art in Paris and counted Paul Eluard, Andre Breton, Max Ernst and Pablo Picasso among his friends. He became a Surrealist painter, and subsequently mounted the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition in London, which led to the establishment of the movement in Britain. One of the co-founders of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, he became well known for organizing the Arts Council exhibitions of Picasso, Ernst and Miro, and for writing biographies of Picasso, Miro, Man Ray and Tapies. Today his paintings hang in major galleries all over the world.

Specially commissioned photographs by Alen MacWeeney are presented alongside photographs by Lee Miller, telling the story of Farley Farm and its inhabitants over thirty-five years. Antony Penrose offers personal anecdotes of the dramas and outrageous surprises that were part of everyday life growing up in an unconventional milieu and enjoying visits from some of the most flamboyant and famous artists of the day. The book also documents the internationally renowned collection of painting and sculpture that Miller and Penrose established in their home -- in part composed of artistic mementoes of their friends, like the tile in the kitchen by Picasso or the poem on the stairs by Eluard.

Blending great art with original photography and intimate recollection, this book provides a revealing firsthand account of a Surrealist artists' colony and the story of one of the most fascinating collections of modern art ever assembled.