Surrealist Stratigraphy of Dorothea Tanning’s Chasm

Dr Catriona McAra is Curatorial and Exhibitions Manager at Leeds College of Art. She was awarded her doctorate in History of Art at the University of Glasgow (2012) and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) at the University of Edinburgh (2013-2014).

"This is a long overdue exploration of Dorothea Tanning’s surrealist novel Chasm: A Weekend, a gothic narrative that took the artist fifty-seven years to complete. McAra’s unique ‘stratigraphic’ theoretical reading of the text utilises geological and archaeological metaphors to excavate its many layers of meaning. This study serves as an exemplar of how to achieve a more integrated contextualisation when dealing with the visual and textual output of certain surrealist artists, thus enabling a greater understanding of how one inextricably informs the other."--Susan L. Aberth, Bard College "In A Surrealist Stratigraphy of Dorothea Tanning’s Chasm, Catriona McAra fills a major gap in studies on surrealism by exploring the intriguing complexity of Tanning’s art through repositioning Tanning’s unjustly neglected literary writing at the heart of her creative oeuvre. ...In her book Catriona McAra skillfully combines the playful curiosity and scientific scrutiny of a botanist while guiding us on an exquisite image/textual tour in the labyrinthine garden of Tanning’s art and life. Her critically self-conscious, re-embodied, demythologized perspective plants seeds of thought in the minds of arts scholars and aficionados alike."--Americana, E-Journal of American Studies in Hungary

• ContentsList of IllustrationsAcknowledgementsCast List and Key ScenesIntroduction: Excavating an Abyss: From Manuscript to Novel (1947-2004)1 Unpacking Tanning’s Library2 The Alternative Reality of Sedona3 Surrealism in the Attic4 The Fur of the Fairy Tale5 Quoting "Tanning": Surrealist Heirlooms in Contemporary PracticeBibliographyAppendices