New book 'A Vast Horizon' follows Lee Miller, Picasso and friends on a 1937 holiday
A new book tells the story of a summer holiday in southern France in 1937, when a close-knit group of artists and writers spent weeks together at one hotel. The book is 'A Vast Horizon', written by Anna Thomasson. It is what publishers call a group biography, a life story told through several people at once.
The holiday took place at the Hotel Vaste Horizon in Mougins, a hilltop village near the Mediterranean coast. The Art Newspaper reported on the book on 13 November 2026, describing it as rooted in photographs taken during that late-summer stay.
The guests were a lively mix. Lee Miller and Roland Penrose were there, along with Dora Maar and Pablo Picasso. Ady Fidelin and Man Ray joined them, as did Nusch and Paul Éluard, and Eileen Agar and Joseph Bard. Each couple brought their own work, friendships and rivalries into the same few rooms.
One of the photographs at the centre of the book is by Lee Miller. It shows, from left to right, Nusch Éluard, Paul Éluard, Roland Penrose, Man Ray and Ady Fidelin. Pictures like this are often the starting point for a biography, because they freeze a moment that the people in them lived through in full.
The Art Newspaper's reviewer wrote that the book succeeds remarkably in bringing together a complex mix of egos, events, ideals and disappointments.
For readers who know little about the period, the names may still be unfamiliar. The book is built to introduce them one by one, through the holiday and the photographs that remain from it.
