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Surreal Eden, by award-winning author Margaret Hooks, with photos by Sally Mann, Michael Schuyt & others, traces the trajectory of Edward James; poet, patron of Dalí and Magritte, and architect of 'Las Pozas' - a homage to surrealism in a subtropical rain forest in Mexico's Sierra Huasteca.
 Surreal Eden: Edward James & Las Pozas is the tale of a frustrated artist who attempts to build
an earthly paradise and ends up creating an outstanding work of art - a spectacular mountainside monument to surrealism where brightly colored concrete structures vie for space with the lush vegetation that surrounds and threatens to absorb it. Surreal Eden is profusely illustrated with images by renowned photographers who have photographed Las Pozas, and Edward James and his circle over the years. It includes a series of previously unpublished photos of Las Pozas by Sally Mann, as well as images by Man Ray, E.O.Hoppe, Michael Schuyt, Lourdes Almeida & others. Critical Acclaim for 'Surreal Eden': 'Surreal Eden' does what many good art biographies and histories do: remind us of what gets forgotten and left out of 'official' canons. - RainTaxi James's architectural art had no use beyond its own fantastic forms. It was both process and spectacle, and inspiration for inspiration. - The New York Times ... a visually luscious book, the art writer ... Margaret Hooks provides a monument to James's fantastical life and works and a blueprint for his subconscious ... - Vogue Living In the first of a series covering new photography titles Bookforum rounds up the most noteworthy of the coming season ... Margaret Hooks’s Surreal Eden: Edward James & Las Pozas ... mixes the quixotic and the personal ... documenting the eccentric vision quest of Edward James and the “secret city” that he built near Xilitla in Mexico. - Bookforum About Surreal Eden: Edward James & Las Pozas
Las Pozas, one of the art world's best kept secrets is located in the jungle-covered mountains of Mexico. This spectacular song to surrealism with its enormous, brightly-colored concrete structures springing from lush vegetation was created by one of the least known most compelling figures of our time, the eccentric English aristocrat, Edward James -- poet, patron and architect of dreams. In 1945, James arrived in Xilitla in Mexico’s Sierra Huasteca, an area abundant in waterfalls, birds, butterflies and wild orchids and set about creating a surreal “garden of Eden.” Working with local artisans of Otomí and Mayan origins, he sculpted the jungle, illuminated the forest and built parapets in the sky. Born into incredible wealth - his father was a scion of the American Dodge dynasty, and his mother a leading socialite said to be the daughter of King Edward VII – James inherited two enormous fortunes; lavishing them on an ostentatious lifestyle and becoming a generous patron of the arts. He wrote several volumes of poetry and a bizarre, surreal novel. His circle included some of the most prominent literary figures of the time – John Betjeman, Edith Sitwell and Nancy Mitford. James amassed one of the finest collections of Surrealist art as the patron of artists that included Salvador Dalí, René Magritte and Leonora Carrington. He financed and collaborated on Dali’s Dream of Venus and inspired the Lobster Telephone, as well as Magritte’s renowned painting, La reproduction interdite. He was also the patron of a landmark series of ballets known as Les Ballets 1933. James abandoned England in the late-1930s and went to New York, then to an artist’s colony in Taos, New Mexico, he continued on to Hollywood and Los Angeles where he befriended numerous celebrities, among them Maria Felix, Isamu Noguchi, Man Ray, Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood and Igor Stravinsky. But it was Breton’s “surreal” Mexico that he loved most and Xilitla he considered home. He spent decades shuttling between Mexico, Europe and America, returning frequently to work on Las Pozas. In Surreal Eden, his bizarre life and the creation of his surreal masterpiece are captured in words and images. Surreal Eden: Edward James & Las Pozas
Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2007, 208pps., w'ills., chron., biblio., index, Hardcover. ISBN:1568986122 Also Published in a Spanish Edition: Edward James y Las Pozas: Un sueño surrealista en la selva mexicana Turner, Mexico City, 2008 w' ills., Hardcover. ISBN: 8475066712 |
