Denise Bellon was a friend and photographer of the Surrealists. I’m not sure I’d want to have been seated next to a group of them in a restaurant or in the theater (they were rather a disruptive bunch), but seeing them and their environs from a distance through Ms. Bellon’s lens is quite wonderful.

Here are some choice images:

Dali

Duchamp

A work by Andre Masson

Andre Breton and the gang in masks

The precursor to the French National Film Archive, which was moved periodically during the occupation, frequently in a baby carriage

Self Portrait

More about her at http://www.denise-bellon.fr/.