A Vast Horizon: Artists and Lovers, Freedom and War

Longlisted for the American Library in Paris book award 2026
A Shortlist 'Must Read' non-fiction book

A glorious fusion of history and art, A Vast Horizon tells the story of Pablo Picasso and his free-spirited friends, including Lee Miller and Man Ray, in the tumultuous years around the Second World War.

'Inspired' - The New York Times
'Excellent and revealing' - Antony Penrose, Lee Miller Archives
'At once intimate and expansive' - Clare Mulley, author of Agent Zo
'Ingenious and beguiling' - Literary Review

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. A couple kiss playfully while the others look on, laughing. The moment is captured in Lee Miller's now-iconic image.

Some of the friends are well known, others less so: the dancer Ady Fidelin, the poet Paul Éluard and his wife Nusch, the Surrealists Man Ray and Roland Penrose. They are spending the summer with fellow artists Dora Maar, Eileen Agar and Pablo Picasso.

In A Vast Horizon biographer Anna Thomasson 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. Tracing their lives through their photographs, artworks, poems and letters, from the heady weeks of creativity, sex and collaboration of that Mediterranean summer through the tumultuous years that followed, it is the story of rebellious lives and the redemptive power of art.