ZÛRN, UNICA [zyrn ynika]. f. n. – b. 1916; in Berlin-Grunewald –1. Born to a middle class family, a young woman in Hiter’s Germany. –2. Worked at Universum Film AG as a creator and screenwriter of commercial. –3. Artist who belonged to the Surrealist move

A childhood devastated by rape, the absence of an idealized father, a morally strict mother, and a passion for art shaped Unica Zürn. One of the only prominent female figures of the Surrealist movement, Zürn was tormented by inner demons that she shared through her automatic drawings and anagram poems. She longed for and rejected intimacy at once, seeking her so-called Man of Jasmine, an idealized male figure, throughout her life while living as the partner of Hans Bellmer, noted artist and photographer. As her schizophrenia began to overtake her, she longed to make the woman she once was disappear into the nameless pronoun She. In the eyes of Unica Zürn, madness is the only way to be in the world.

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Betrayal of the Mind: The Surreal Life of Unica Zürn