Since her death, Ithell Colquhoun (1906-88) has been better known as an occultist than an artist. Now, her reputation as a leading figure of British Surrealism is being restored, in an exhibition exploring for the first time the connections between these two facets of her life.
Between Worlds, the biggest exhibition of her work ever staged, opens at Tate St Ives this month before later travelling to Tate Britain in London. It is the first such collaboration between two Tate sites, and recognises the significance of both places in the artist’s life and work. “Sometimes she’s seen as being a bit reclusive, and retreating to Cornwall, where she’s just completely absorbed in esoteric material,” says Katy Norris, the exhibitions and displays curator at Tate St Ives. “But she was going between Cornwall and London throughout the 1940s, and she was always actively working with networks across those two places.”
Never seen before
Spurred by Tate’s 2019 acquisition of Colquhoun’s vast archive, previously split with the National Trust, the survey will follow the artist’s five-decade career, from early success at London’s Slade School of Fine Art, where her Judith Showing the Head of Holofernes won the 1929 Summer Composition Prize, to the advanced esoterica of her later years. Of more than 170 paintings, drawings and writings on show, many have never been seen before.
Colquhoun’s Scylla (méditerranée) (1938)
Ithell Colquhoun; Scylla (méditerranée); 1938 Tate: Purchased 1977 © Spire Healthcare; © Noise Abatement Society; © Samaritans
Among the most significant finds have been studies for paintings, including Scylla, made in 1938 during Colquhoun’s intense engagement with the Surrealists. The archive brings new insights into her use of automatic, Surrealist processes, such as fumage, using a candle to create a trail of soot on paper, and decalcomania, to create a mirror image. Colquhoun’s refusal of Surrealist dogma led to her expulsion from the British group in 1940, after which she became one of the growing band of artists exploring Surrealist ideas at arm’s length. Though she continued to spend time in London, her relocation in 1940 to Cornwall’s Lamorna Cove coincided with an increased focus on occult activities, including the publication of several books.
The exhibition builds on a recent spike in interest in Surrealist women, including Leonora Carrington and Leonor Fini, highlighting the previously overlooked connection between occultism and Surrealism. “Most groups of artists in that period are thinking about ways to remake the world,” says Emma Chambers, the co-curator of the Tate Britain exhibition. “Surrealism is one way that you might do it, spiritual investigations are another. Colquhoun’s not alone—it’s part of an inter-war trajectory about remaking the world, remaking relationships between men and women.” Today, her ideas about gender, ecology and divine femininity as the keys to a delicately balanced universe are gaining renewed currency.
• Ithell Colquhoun: Between Worlds, Tate St Ives, 1 February-5 May; Tate Britain, London, 12 June-19 October