In the summer of 1937, a group of artists and intellectuals gathered at the Hôtel-Restaurane Vaste Horizon, a modest pension near Cannes on the French Riviera, creating a vibrant circle where artistic innovation and personal freedom intertwined. This fleeting moment, documented in Anna Thomasson’s book *A Vast Horizon: Artists and Lovers, Freedom and War*, offers a vivid portrait of the relationships, creativity, and political undercurrents that shaped this community on the eve of World War II.

The group included prominent figures such as Pablo Picasso, the photographer and painter Dora Maar, the surrealist photographer Lee Miller, the poet Paul Éluard and his wife, Nusch, and Man Ray. Alongside them was Ady Fidelin, a Guadeloupean dancer who lived with Man Ray in Paris before the war. These individuals formed a complex web of romantic and artistic connections that blurred conventional boundaries. Sexual experimentation and emotional entanglements were as integral to their dynamic as their artistic output, reflecting a shared ethos of defiance and liberation in the face of rising fascism in Europe.

Thomasson’s narrative structure, resembling a collage, combines evocative descriptions of photographs and artworks with biographical sketches, capturing the fluidity and spontaneity of the group’s interactions. The book highlights the physicality and intimacy present in the images taken during the months-long summer retreat, emphasizing how their bodies and creative energies were intertwined.

Central to this portrayal is a photograph by Lee Miller that features five members of the group—two women, including Fidelin and Nusch, both topless, and three men—relaxed in a sunlit clearing. The scene, marked by casual ease and openness, exemplifies the spirit of freedom and camaraderie that defined their gathering. Thomasson notes the diversity within the group, which included a Black woman, a Jewish American man, and a wealthy English art collector, underscoring their shared resistance to the exclusionary and oppressive forces soon to engulf Europe.

Picasso emerges as a key figure, orchestrating dinners and social encounters while continuing his artistic practice. During this period, he created portraits of friends and lovers in bold, expressive colors and engaged in playful acts that blurred lines between art and life. However, even amidst this creative vitality, the looming war cast a shadow. Picasso had recently completed *Guernica*, his anguished response to the bombing of a Spanish town, and simultaneously faced the Nazis’ denunciation of his work as “degenerate” art displayed in Munich.

The summer of 1937 marked a final moment of unity for this group, whose members were soon dispersed by conflict and hardship. Thomasson’s book preserves the memory of their intertwined lives and imaginations, revealing how their personal freedoms and artistic innovations served as a form of resistance against the encroaching darkness of fascism.