Nusch Éluard

Nusch Éluard ( born June 21, 1906 in Mulhouse, † November 28, 1946 in Paris; native Maria Benz) was a German - French actress, model, cabaret artist and a Surrealist muse. She was the second wife of the poet Paul Éluard.

Life

Nusch Éluard in photographs and paintings ( external links! )

• Dora Maar: Les années vous guettent ( Nusch Eluard ), 1932
• Man Ray, Paul Éluard: Facile, 1935
• Man Ray: Sonia Mossé et Nusch Éluard, 1936
• Pablo Picasso: Nusch Éluard, oil on canvas, 1937
• Pablo Picasso: Nusch Éluard, charcoal and crayon on canvas, 1938
• Lee Miller: Nusch Éluard, Mougins, France, 1944

Maria Benz, called " Nusch ", began her career as an actress in Berlin in theater and vaudeville productions. On stage, she played minor roles in plays by August Strindberg. Around 1920, she posed as a model for postcards. From 1920, she appeared as an acrobat, hypnotist and performer at the Théâtre du Grand Guignol in Paris and worked as a photo model. In 1929, she met René Char and Paul Éluard know that they introduced into the circle of the Paris Surrealists. At this time she posed as a model for Man Ray. Mid-1930s, Man Ray published the books Facile ( with Paul Éluard, 1935) and La Photographie n'est pas l'art ( with André Breton, 1937) in which he used solarized nude photographs of Nusch Éluard. With Paul Éluard, who had just separated from his wife, Gala - the marriage was divorced in 1932 - she began a romantic relationship. Nusch and Paul Éluard married in 1934, just a week after the wedding of André Breton and Jacqueline Lamba to emphasize the mutual bond of friendship. Only four years later, Paul Éluard, Breton should be banished from the Surrealist group.

From a meeting with Pablo Picasso a more sustainable friendship was born. Together with Picasso, his then girlfriend Dora Maar, and Man Ray, Adrienne " Ady " Fidelin, Roland Penrose and Lee Miller spent the Eluard their summer holidays in Mougins, Picasso's later retirement home. The photographer Dora Maar and Nusch were good friends. Maar had already made ​​in the 1930s, some portrait photographs of her and also for Picasso sat Nusch later for some portrait paintings model. At times, she is said to have had an affair with him.

By 1940, the Eluard lived in Paris. With the occupation by the Germans, they joined the Resistance. 1942 Paul Éluard rejoined the PCF, the French Communist Party, at; Meanwhile distributed Nusch his subversive poems, hidden in candy boxes.

On November 28, 1946 Nusch Éluard broke with a stroke in Paris in the street dead together. She was buried in the Cimetière du Père -Lachaise cemetery.