London International Surrealist Exhibition

The International Surrealist Exhibition was held from 11 June to 4 July 1936 at the New Burlington Galleries in London, England.

The exhibition was organised by:

  • Hugh Sykes Davies
  • David Gascoyne
  • Humphrey Jennings
  • Rupert Lee
  • Diana Brinton Lee
  • Henry Moore
  • Paul Nash
  • Roland Penrose
  • Herbert Read
  • E. L. T. Mesens

The French organising committee were

  • André Breton
  • Paul Éluard
  • Georges Hugnet
  • Man Ray

The exhibition was opened in the presence of about two thousand people by André Breton. The average attendance for the whole of the Exhibition was about a thousand people per day.

During the course of the Exhibition, the following lectures were delivered to large audiences:

  • June 16 — André Breton — Limites non Frontières du Surréalisme.
  • June 19 — Herbert Read — Art and the Unconscious.
  • June 24 — Paul Éluard — La Poésie Surréaliste.
  • June 26 — Hugh Sykes Davies — Biology and Surrealism.
  • July 1 — Salvador Dalí — Fantomes paranoiaques authentiques.

Dali's lecture was delivered whilst wearing a deep-sea diving suit. Nearly suffocating during the presentation, Dali had to be rescued by the young poet David Gascoyne, who arrived with a spanner to release him from the diving helmet.

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