Penelope Rosemont | |
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 Penelope Rosemont signing at Chicago'sWomen and Children First, 2007. |
Penelope Rosemont (born 1942 inChicago, Illinois) is a visual artist, writer, publisher, and social activist who attendedLake Forest College. She has been a participant in the Surrealist Movement since 1965. WithFranklin Rosemont, Bernard Marszalek, Robert Green and TorFaegre, she established theChicago Surrealist Group in 1966.[1] She was in 1964-1966 a member of theIndustrial Workers of the World (IWW), commonly known as the Wobblies, and was part of the national staff ofStudents for a Democratic Society (SDS) in 1967-68. Her influences includeAndre Breton andGuy Debord of theSituationist International,Emma Goldman andLucy Parsons.[2]
In 1986, Penelope Rosemont's painting the "Marriage of Heaven and Hell" was included in theVenice Biennale, selected by Arturo Schwartz to be in the Art and Alchemy section. A painter, photographer, andcollagist, Rosemont is credited with having invented a number of surrealist collage methods including the "landscapade" and "insect music" [in which cut-out shapes are placed on the background of a musical score].[3] Rosemont is a writer and graphic designer forArsenal/Surrealist Subversion and other publications.[4] Her paintingThe Night Time is the Right Time "was selected by theChicago Jazz Institute for the 2000Chicago Jazz Festival T-shirt".[5] A number of Rosemont's drawings and artwork appear in her books and are particularly abundant inSurrealist Experiences: 1001 Dawns, 221 Midnights.
The Rosemonts write with enthusiasm about their meeting withAndre Breton and Surrealist group members during a stay inParis, France, in December 1965–May 1966. Penelope writes about this important period in her life in the booksSurrealist Experiences: 1001 Dawns, 221 Midnights and in her autobiographical workDreams and Everyday Life: Andre Breton, Surrealism, Rebel Worker, SDS, & the Seven Cities of Cibola, A 1960s Notebook, while Franklin discusses it in his book,An Open Entrance into the Shut Palace of Wrong Numbers. In the Surrealist Experiences, Penelope Rosemont writes about a nascent group of Surrealists that had already formed in Chicago, the Rebel Worker group, before they met Breton and, in fact, this was the impetus to go to Paris, to meet the Surrealists they had been corresponding with. She writes that the initial plan was to go toLondon, England, first and then to Paris; however, as she says, "thanks to a mean-spirited British immigration bureaucrat", they were deported to Paris. That event was fortuitous because the surrealist exhibitionL'Ecart absolu was taking place at the time; she attended a New Years Eve party organized by surrealists;and she was able to talk with Breton before he "became seriously ill a few months later".[6]
The Rosemonts are referenced inHelena Lewis's 1988 book on Surrealism and Politics,Dada Turns Red.. There, Lewis wrote:
"There was also a group of young people in Chicago in the late 1960s who made a connection between Surrealism and the old IWW,The Rebel Worker in which translations of Surrealist writing appeared . . . and they also published an art anthology of Surrealist political texts, in which the editor, Franklin Rosemont, explained how Surrealism was relevant to his movement."[7]
In his bookFreedom Dreams, published inBoston, 2002,Robin D. G. Kelley writes: “my search for an even more elaborate, complete dream of freedom...thanks to the many wonderful chance encounters with Franklin Rosemont, Penelope Rosemont,Ted Joans,Laura Corsiglia andJayne Cortez, I discovered surrealism...right under my nose, so to speak, buried in the rich black soil of Afrodiasporic culture.” p. 4.
The Chicago Surrealist group, under their imprintBlack Swan Press, published the journalArsenal/Surrealist Subversion' sporadically from 1970 to 1989' which featured the work ofRichard Huelsenbeck,Andre Breton,Georges Bataille,Ted JoansJayne Cortez and many other Surrealists, well-known and lesser known. Franklin and Penelope Rosemont were on the editorial board, along with (for issue 4), co-editorsPaul Garon,Joseph Jablonski andPhilip Lamantia.
Penelope Rosemont is the editor and wrote extensive introductions for her bookSurrealist Women: An International Anthology (University of Texas, 1998), a book of over 500 pages of writing and art by women in the Surrealist movement, both past and present, dating back to the beginnings of Surrealism in the 1920s. It featuresMeret Oppenheim,Mary Low,Leonora Carrington,Nancy Cunard,Frida Kahlo,Dorothea Tanning,Elisa Breton,Kay Sage,Jayne Cortez,Rikki Ducornet and over one hundred more.
She is the author ofSurrealist Experiences: 1001 Dawns, 221 Midnights (Black Swan Press, 2000), and books of poetry, includingBeware of the Ice, andAthanor (1971).
In 1997, Black Swan Press released the bookThe Forecast is Hot!, and Other Collective Declarations of the Surrealist Movement in the United States, which Penelope co-authored with Franklin Rosemont and fellow Chicago SurrealistPaul Garon.
She also editedThe Story of Mary MacLane & Other Writings byMary MacLane, which was re-released by Charles H. Kerr in 1998, having originally been published in 1902. MacLane has been "hailed as the first 'New Woman' in literature, the first flapper and a precursor of surrealism."[8]
In 2008, her memoir came out,Dreams & Everyday Life, André Breton, Surrealism, Rebel Worker, SDS & the Seven Cities of Cibola, about her life in the 1960s from moving to Chicago to meeting Andre Breton in Paris, to London and back again to Chicago in 1968.
A collection of true Chicago stories,Armitage Avenue Transcendentalists, edited by Rosemont andJanina Ciezadlo, came out in 2009. Rosemont also wrote a foreword toCrime & Criminals: Address to the Prisoners in the Cook County Jail & Other Writings on Crime byClarence Darrow.
In 2018,Make Love, Not War: Surrealism 1968!, co-authored with Don LaCoss and Michael Lowy, was published by Charles H. Kerr Publishing, Chicago.
Surrealism: Inside the Magnetic Fields, which recounts her experiences and historical perspective on the field of surrealism, was published by City Lights in 2019.
In addition to editing the anthologySurrealist Women, Rosemont has written extensively about women, including Toyen, specifically, as well as many Surrealist women, who are often omitted from the history of Surrealism, in her bookSurrealist Experiences
She has also been outspoken in public discussions and articles in the promotion and defense of the women of Surrealism. By her presence in the American Surrealist movement, her activism, and her publishing, she has been one of the people who have raised the profile of women in the movement.
In 1983, she andFranklin Rosemont became directors ofCharles H. Kerr & Company, a publisher of books on history and Chicago history[9]
The Alternatives in Publication Task Force of the Social Responsibilities Round Table of theAmerican Library Association awards theJackie Eubanks Memorial Award, which "recognizes outstanding achievement in promoting the acquisition and use of alternative materials in libraries.".[10] In 2001, the Rosemonts andCarlos Cortez received the award for their work "rescuing and re-charging" Charles H. Kerr Publishing."[11]
Penelope Rosemont was a member of the IWW (Wobblies) and SDS in the 1960s. WithFranklin Rosemont she compiled a collection of pamphlets, wall posters, and periodicals focusing on the IWW acquired by theNewberry Library in 2008[12] Her bookArmitage Avenue Transcendentalists details stories in the lives of a number of activists, including famous ChicagoanStuds Terkel.
In 1977, continuing the Surrealist tradition of protesting bourgeois art, Penelope Rosemont and other surrealists were arrested for handing out leaflets as part of a Surrealist action protesting the "giant billy club" called the "bat column" on which Chicago spent $100,000 to erect theClaes OldenburgBatcolumn.[13]
