genitalia. Their book illustrations often featured female faces. Toyen contributed erotic sketches for Štyrský's Erotická Revue (1930–33). This journal was published on strict subscription terms based on a circulation of 150 copies. Štyrský also published books under the imprint Edice 69, some of which Toyen illustrated. For example, Toyen illustrated the Marquis de Sade's Justine. Also of note, they contributed pieces in Die Frau als Künstlerin, Woman as an Artist, the prestigious 1928 survey of women artists in Western civilization. Toyen's output of over 500 illustrated books includes, for example, The Purple Land by W. H. Hudson and Charles Vildrac's L'lle rose, both from 1930. After their associates Vítězslav Nezval and Jindřich Honzl met André Breton in Paris, in March 1934 Toyen and Štyrský joined them in founding the Czech Surrealist Group along with other artists, writers, and the composer Jaroslav Ježek. Forced underground during the Nazi occupation and Second World War, Toyen sheltered their second artistic partner, Jindřich Heisler, a poet of Jewish descent who had joined the Czech Surrealist Group in 1938. The two permanently relocated to Paris in 1947, before the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948, and joined the Parisian Surrealists. In Paris, Toyen worked with André Breton, Benjamin Péret and other surrealists such as Annie Le Brun. Toyen would continue to collaborate with surrealist-affiliated poets and other writers but soon ceased working for commercial publishers in Czechoslovakia. Exploring sexuality and gender in surrealism Toyen's artistic identity involved significant attention to gender issues and sexual politics. It has been suggested that this would have been difficult considering the surrealist movement was male-dominated and is often regarded as sexist. However, surrealism began to attract many women in the 1930s and became much more gender-balanced as time went by. Breton in particular admired Toyen and the artist was close to both Breton and his third wife, Elisa. Toyen was assigned female at birth, but appears to have preferred a less-gendered identification. Some people compare Toyen with "other Surrealist women" (Claude Cahun, Leonora Carrington, and a handful of others). Cahun examined the fluidity of gender roles, which was also true of Toyen. Toyen often dressed in masculine-style clothing and preferred masculine signifiers, choosing a non-conformist position when it came to gender and sexuality, themes heavily mined in Surrealist art. The act of cross-dressing was a tool used by Toyen and woman artists at the time to overcome institutionalized and