The (Sur)Real Miss World

Art imitates life, it has been said, but (in case you can't figure out what's going on here) sometimes life imitates art. The life in this instance is that of the just-retired Miss World, Silvana Suarez, and the art she's imitating is that of the Belgian surrealist René Magritte (1898--1967). The inspiration to incorporate a real woman into Magritte-style photographs came from Belgian fashion photographer Pierre Eggermont, who met the 20-year-old Argentine beauty queen while attending the Miss World 1978 finals in London.

Eggermont mentioned his love of Magritte's work to Silvana and was delighted to learn that she, too, was a lover of the surreal and of the works of Magritte in particular. Together they contacted Playboy and we turned them over to Pope. Pope, not a bad surrealist himself, painted both the sets and Silvana. Showing remarkable self-control, Silvana sometimes stood still for Pope's brush for three straight hours. Says Pope of his artwork on Silvana's prize-winning form, "It's hard to paint on soft curved surfaces."