 A reading of C.M. Mayo's article originally
published in Inside
Mexico, March 2009, about a visit in Mexico City with
the author of Villa Air-Bel:  World War II,
Escape, and House in Marseilles, a page-turner of a deeply
researched history about the rescue of artists and intellectuals
trapped as the Nazis closed in. This effort, promoted by the
New York-based Emergency Rescue Committee and their agent in
Marseilles, Varian Fry, managed to save André Breton,
Marc Chagall, and Max Ernst, among others, and found refuge for
them in the United States. But some came to Mexico, including
Russian novelist Victor Serge, his son Vlady, and, most famously,
Surrealist painter Remedios Varo, who today (along with Frida
Kahlo) is among Mexico's most revered artists. For this reason,
Villa Air-Bel is a work important to the history of modern art
in Mexico. But the book's connection to Mexico goes deeper. "Villa
Air-Bel started here," Sullivan  said.. . (Approx 10 minutes) |
A Traveler in Mexico:
A Rendezvous with Writer ROSEMARY SULLIVAN
