A Vast Horizon: Artists and Lovers, Freedom and War

Late summer 1937. Europe is inching towards war. In the South of France a group of friends picnic in a secluded clearing. The women have peeled down their dresses to their waists. Shoes have been cast aside. A couple kiss playfully while the others look on, laughing. The moment is captured in a now-iconic image by photographer Lee Miller. Some of the friends - the dancer Ady Fidelin, the poet Paul Éluard and his wife Nusch, the Surrealists Man Ray and Roland Penrose - are well-known, others less so. They are spending the summer at the Hôtel Vaste Horizon with fellow artists Dora Maar, Eileen Agar and Pablo Picasso. A Vast Horizon tells the story of their creativity, friendships and pursuit of freedom set against the tense political backdrop of the 1930s, the Second World War and its aftermath.