Nusch Eluard, 1930 ca

Nusch, born Maria Benz in Mulhouse in 1906, was Paul Éluard's second wife and became his muse. A woman without taboos and a leading figure of Surrealism, celebrated in the works of Man Ray, Picasso, Miró, Valentine Hugo, and Dora Maar, she participated in the Communist Resistance after the breaking of the German-Soviet pact in 1941, despite her failing health. She died suddenly of a stroke in 1946. Inconsolable after his wife's death, Paul Éluard wrote a series of poems in her honor ("Poésie ininterrompue (Uninterrupted Poetry)" 1946; "Le temps déborde (Time Overflows)" 1947; and "Nusch," 1950).