But does it make for good art? On that score ... and others. Breton’s surrealism, on the other hand, is both idealistic and ideological. It prescribes certain artistic practices—automatism ...

that made her such a fascinating figure within American surrealism. “Art has to be real crazy, real personal and real real, or it is nowhere,” Abercrombie once wrote. Hers certainly was.

His visual art is not yet as well known as ... It’s throwing artistic hand grenades until, as the Chicago Surrealist Group had it, “the contradiction between everyday life and our wildest ...