Black-and-white photograph of British writer, heiress and political activist Nancy Cunard (1896 – 1965). She is seated on a black velvet-draped chair, wearing an intricately-patterned satin dress, her arms filled with African bangle bracelets made of wood, brass, silver, and ceramics. Her dark wavy hair is cut short, secured with a black velvet headband, and he is gazing toward the horizon on her left.
Born into British aristocracy, Ms. Cunard devoted much of her life to fighting racism and fascism. She became a muse to some of the 20th century's most distinguished writers and artists, including Wyndham Lewis, Aldous Huxley, Tristan Tzara, Ezra Pound and Louis Aragon—as well as Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Constantin Brâncuși, Langston Hughes, Man Ray and William Carlos Williams.
In the mid-1930s Cunard took up the anti-fascist fight, writing about Mussolini's annexation of Ethiopia and the Spanish Civil War. She predicted, accurately, that the "events in Spain were a prelude to another world war.” Cunard herself helped deliver supplies and organize the relief effort, but poor health – caused in part by exhaustion and the conditions in the camps – forced her to return to Paris.
During World War II, Cunard worked, to the point of physical exhaustion, as a translator in London on behalf of the French Resistance.
In later years she suffered from mental illness and poor physical health, worsened by alcoholism, poverty, and “self-destructive behavior.” She was committed to a mental hospital after a fight with London police. After her release, her health declined even further, and she weighed less than 60 pounds when she was found on the street in Paris and brought to the Hôpital Cochin, where she died two days later. She was 69 years old.
More:
https://www.vogue.com/article/nancy-cunard-brancusi-jeune-fille-sophistiquee-bronze-sculpture
British poet, journalist, and
activist #NancyCunard – “The Renegade Heiress” who dedicated her life to
fighting racism and fascism – a mission that ultimately cost her both her family and her fortune.
More from biographer Anne De Courcy (excerpt):
www.townandcountrymag.com/about/a42816...
