Silvano Levy is an academic and art critic specialising in surrealism. He has published on Belgian surrealism with studies on René Magritte, E.L.T. Mesens and Paul Nougé. His research on The Surrealist Group in England began with a film on Conroy Maddox and the book Conroy Maddox: Surreal Enigmas...
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Silvano Levy is an academic and art critic specialising in surrealism. He has published on Belgian surrealism with studies on René Magritte, E.L.T. Mesens and Paul Nougé. His research on The Surrealist Group in England began with a film on Conroy Maddox and the book Conroy Maddox: Surreal Enigmas (1995), while a wider interest in the movement led to the publication of Surrealism: Surrealist Visuality (1997) and Surrealism (2000). Levy has curated national touring exhibitions of the work of Maddox and Desmond Morris, and has published a monograph on the latter entitled Desmond Morris: 50 Years of Surrealism (1997), which was followed by the enlarged re-edition Desmond Morris: Naked Surrealism (1999). Subsequent books on Morris include Lines of Thought: The Drawings of Desmond Morris (2008) and two volumes (2000 & 2012) of an analytical catalogue raisonné spanning eight decades. Silvano Levy's monograph on Maddox, The Scandalous Eye. The Surrealism of Conroy Maddox, was published by Liverpool University Press in 2003 and further scholarly studies cover Sheila Legge, Toni del Renzio, André Breton, Dina Lenković, Jean-Martin Charcot and Birmingham surrealism. Dr Levy is editor of Surrealist Bulletin and has held academic posts at the University of Liverpool, Newcastle Polytechnic, the University of Bath, the University of Hull and Keele University, where he was promoted to Senior Lecturer in French in 1998 and then to Reader in 2005.SHEILA LEGGE: PHANTOM OF SURREALISMSheila Legge made the headlines in the hot summer of 1936 when she paraded in Trafalgar Square as the ‘Surrealist Phantom of Sex Appeal’. The public was perplexed by this elegantly dressed young woman whose head was completely shrouded in red roses. Since then, nothing more has been heard of her and she has remained a mystery for some eight decades.Silvano Levy’s painstaking research has now pieced together the main elements of Sheila’s life and involvement in surrealism. His study establishes the Phantom’s biographical chronology and lineage, as well as offering commentaries on texts and other traces she has left behind. Fully illustrated throughout this book casts some light on an intriguing character in the history of British Surrealism.
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