Angels of Anarchy

I went to go see the Angels of Anarchy exhibition at the Manchester Art Gallery. I've seen an exhibition of Frida Kahlo at the Tate in London a few years ago and it was brilliant, so I'd had some previous knowledge of female surrealists. There were only one or two pieces of hers in this exhibition. The exhibition was interesting but I feel I didn't learn very much. I did like the areas the exhibition covered such as the female surrealists view of the interior. There were a few pieces I liked such as the whip made of two plaits of her own blonde hair by Mimi Parent Maîtresse. One piece really shocked me and that was Lee Millers photograph of a severed woman's breast. What shocked me most was the story about it. Lee Miller was invited to witness a mastectomy, once the operation had finished Miller asked if she could take the breast. Next, she sneaked into the Vogue house in Paris. She got into a photography studio where she quickly set up a dinner table and place setting, she snapped this before being thrown out of Vogue onto the streets....with the breast being thrown after her. I thought this was an incredible story. The photograph had only recently been recovered after the story had been told and retold someone came across the photograph and knew exactly what it was.