Rahon, Alice, 1904-1987

Alice Rahon (1904-1987), née Alice Marie Yvonne Philippot, was a French-born poet and visual artist. She was a prominent figure in the Surrealist movement, with close personal and working relationships with Surrealist writers and artists, both in Paris and in Mexico. Her life and career can be separated into two periods: poetry in Paris and painting in Mexico. She established herself first as a poet in France before relocating to Mexico City, where she transitioned to producing visual art, primarily painting.

Rahon was born in Chenecey-Buillon, France in 1904 (her birth year is erroneously listed as 1924 on her Mexican passports and customs documents; see: Box 5, Folder 11). Numerous injuries sustained as a child and as a young woman left Rahon immobile and isolated from her peers for extended periods of time. During the lengthy recovery periods, Rahon occupied her time with reading, writing, and drawing, developing the imagination and introspection that influenced her artistic career. She and her sister, Georgette "Geo" Dupin, moved to Paris in the 1920s where Rahon worked as a model and wrote poetry. She had already met and collaborated with photographer Man Ray and fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli when she met artist Wolfgang Paalen in 1931. Their marriage in 1934 introduced her to Paris’s burgeoning Surrealist community and its central figure, André Breton, co-founder and leader of the movement. Breton supported Rahon's early career by financing her first two books of poetry and publishing her work in Surrealist publications. She was the first woman to be published by Éditions Surréalistes and her writings were illustrated by artists within the Surrealist circle, including Pablo Picasso, with whom she had a brief affair. In all, she published three volumes of poetry between 1936 and 1941.

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