Now open at Tate St Ives, Ithell Colquhoun: Between Worlds is the largest exhibition of Colquhoun’s work ever staged.
Ithell Colquhoun (1906-1988) was one of the most radical artists of her generation, an important, but often overlooked, figure in British Surrealism. This exhibition – featuring over 200 artworks and pieces of archival material including painting, drawing and writing, many of which have never been publicly exhibited – draws on Tate’s significant archive of the artist’s work, tracing Colquhoun’s evolution from her early work and engagement with the surrealist movement, to her fascination with the intertwining realms of art, sexual identity, ecology, magic and mysticism.
The exhibition maps the artist’s developing practice from the mid-1920s to the 1980s. Early paintings from her time at the Slade School of Fine Art are presented, including Judith Showing the Head of Holofernes 1929, in which Colquhoun combines biblical subjects with subversive occultist elements, challenging social convention to express her own beliefs.
The exhibition explores Colquhoun’s engagement with Surrealism in the 1930s and 40s, featuring works such as Water-Flower 1938 and Scylla (méditerranée) 1938 – one of the artist’s most celebrated works which merges the female form with the natural landscape.
At this time Colquhoun was making work for her own spiritual progression as well as for public display, and the artist’s immersion in occultism also developed into the 1940s, embracing ancient philosophical principles including alchemy, paganism, animism and mysticism.
Inspired by the region’s ancient landscape, mythologies and neolithic monuments, Colquhoun began spending time in Cornwall, and in 1949 she acquired a studio in Lamorna before settling in Paul. The exhibition also features a number of the artist’s visionary works of sacred sites and standing stone configurations in Cornwall, Ireland and Brittany which have been brought together for the first time.
Ithell Colquhoun: Between Worlds continues at Tate St Ives until 5 May, when the exhibition travels to Tate Britain (12 June – 19 October). For further information: tate.org.uk
Image: Ithell Colquhoun, Alcove, 1946, Private Collection © Spire Healthcare, ©Noise Abatement Society, © Samaritans
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