Notes on Two Women Surrealist Painters: and Author(s): Dawn Ades Source: Oxford Art Journal, Vol. 3, No. 1, Women in Art (Apr., 1980), pp. 36-42 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1360177 . Accessed: 05/03/2014 11:37

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This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Wed, 5 Mar 2014 11:37:56 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Notes on Two WomenSurrealist Painters: Eileen Agarand Ithell Colquhoun DAWNADES

This article is primarilyconcerned with the work of realiststyle by the early thirties,or show the influence two English artists, Eileen Agar and Ithell Colqu- of Tanguy's strangelandscapes peopled with biomor- houn, and will examine in particular their relation- phic objects. This is partly explained by the catholic ship with . It will also raise, although interestin all modern art of one of the two selectors briefly,some questions about the role, both active and for the 1936 Surrealist Exhibition, Herbert ideal, of women withinSurrealism, and the effectthat Read: in abstractpainting and sculptureas well as Sur- prevailingsurrealist attitudes towards women, as they realism. As significant,I think,is the factthat the first are revealed through the surrealist pre-occupation great generationof surrealistpainters, including Mir6 with sexuality and eroticism, may have had upon and Masson, and to a certain degree Arp, found that theirwork. automatismled to freerand more autonomous forms, Surrealism made a belated but spectacular arrival towards a biomorphic abstraction. When Breton re- in England withthe opening of the InternationalSur- affirmedthe importanceof automatismfor Surrealism realistExhibition in London in June 1936, twelveyears in 1941, after the decade of the dominance of the afterthe publication of the firstSurrealist Manifesto by "hand-painted dream picture", he defined automat- Andre Breton, and the foundation of the Surrealist ism and the trompe l'oeil fixingof dream images as Research Centre in Paris. Many English painters the two distinctand major routes within Surrealism: were already aware of the movement, and had seen surrealistworks in Paris, but its influenceat this time "Automatism... has remainedone of Surrealism'stwo tended to be diffusedin a more general modernism greatdirections. [...] Withoutprejudice to thedeep indivi- heavilyindebted to Picasso. Stronglycommitted artists dual tensionsthat graphic and verbalautomatism brings to like Roland Penrose formedclose links with the Paris thesurface and to someextent is able to resolve,I maintain and Leonora left to work thatit is theonly mode of expression which gives full satis- group, Carrington England factionto both and ear with in but there was neither eye by achievingrhythmic unity just France, as in an automatic or textas in a focus nor direction for surrealist in recognisable drawing sympathisers or a bird'snest. In thefield of art, the work of interest was shown melody [...] England, although sporadic by art can be consideredsurrealist only in proportionto the reviews. In 1935 David had literary Gascoyne pub- effortsthe artist has made to encompassthe whole psycho- lished A ShortHistory of Surrealism, which, writtenwith physicalfield (in whichthe fieldof consciousnessconsti- advice from Breton and Eluard, and containing a tutesonly a verysmall segment). Freud has demonstrated brilliantlyselected section of translationsfrom French thatat theseunfathomable depths there reigns the absence surrealist writings,helped prepare the way for the ofcontradiction, the relaxation of emotional tensions due to exhibition. repression,the lack of a senseof time, and thereplacement ofexternal a the Even after the exhibition, surrealist activity in realityby psychicreality obeying pleasure was and it was not until 1940 that a principlealone. Automatismleads us in a straightline to England patchy, this The road available surrealismto reach concerted effortwas made to establish a with region. other to group its the ofdream in thekind of defined aims. The for this came not from objective, stabilizing images impetus stilllife knownas l'oeil(and the word Paris-oriented but fromthe artist deception trompe very surrealists, Belgian deceptionbetrays the weaknessof the process),has been and dealer E.L.T. with a orien- Mesens, consequent proved by experienceto be far less reliable and even tation of the group towards the Belgian surrealists, presentsvery real risksof thetraveller losing his way alto- like Rene Magritte. The 'membership' of the sur- gether." realist group fluctuated widely. Until 1940 it was loosely defined, and could be determined only by Eileen Agar was the only professional woman participation in surrealistexhibitions, the signing of painterto exhibitat the InternationalSurrealist Exhi- tracts, or inclusion in a surrealist review like Mino- bition in 1936. It was Roland Penrose and Herbert taure.Names appear and disappear rapidly. It is poss- Read who selected the artistsfor it, and theyspent the ible, however, to detect a differencebetween the months before June visiting studios. The selection works of those exhibitingat the 1936 exhibition,and was not based on very rigid criteria. Breton had those who joined subsequently. With a few obvious always been the arbiter of visual Surrealism in exceptionslike Roland Penrose, the earlier generation France, and although it was clearly not difficultto of English surrealists were working in an abstract identifycertain techniques, such as automatic draw- manner. Subsequent adherents,like Edith Rimming- ing, frottage,or decalcomania, with Surrealism, to ton, , or Ithell Colquhoun, favour limitSurrealism to technique had never been Breton's either meticulous illusionary realism, established by practice. Nor, had this been a strict requirement, Salvador Dali and Magritte as the dominant sur- would many English paintershave qualified. So it was

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This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Wed, 5 Mar 2014 11:37:56 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions in termsof rathergeneral qualities of the imagination 1929), now in the Gallery. This is a strange, that Penrose and Read judged the native painters. almost naive painting: Greece, Christianity, and Paul Nash, who had met Eileen Agar the previous modern technology, which Agar believed to be the summer in Swanage, suggested they should visit her bases of modern civilisation,are representedby a long studio, which they did in the early spring of 1936. black iron bridge, the facade of a church in the sky "Both of us were at once enchanted by the rare above and a Greek pillar. This is a highly personal quality of her talent, the product of a highlysensitive painting; afterit, Agar's work moves fasttowards an imaginationand a feminineclairvoyance." Thus, like assured abstraction, although her style remained several English painters, Eileen Agar virtually deliberatelyvaried, but not eclectic. In Paris she came became a surrealistovernight. In his catalogue note to across Breton and Eluard but the contacts she valued Eileen Agar: A Decade of Discoveries(1975), Penrose most at this time were with the cubist painter Louis noted thatAgar's workwas in a period of transitionin Marcoussis and the sculptorBrancusi, whom she met 1936. It is interestingto see how farand in what direc- through Ezra Pound. In 1931, after returning to tion contact with the surrealists, from the meeting England, she painted Movementin Space. Recently on with Paul Nash on, did in factchange her work. exhibitionin The Thirties exhibitionat the Hayward, Eileen Agar had been one of the firststudents to this was, in the context of much English painting of enter, in 1923, the studio of , a the time, a strikinglyspare, restrained,abstract work, generous and lively teacher, who also taught Henry closer perhaps to Gabo than to any cubist painting. Moore. In spite of strong parental opposition, she She was, however, at the same time making pencil entered the Slade in 1924. She firstvisited Paris in drawingsof her husband, the writerJosephBard. 1925-6, and saw a surrealist painting in a gallery She met Nash in 1935. This was the period during window. In 1928 the Russian artist Boris Anrep which he was most absorbed by surrealistideas. He advised her to returnto live in Paris, on the grounds and Edward Burra used to send each other collages, that English art was too provincial. She followed his and fabricatedsome together. Nash was working on advice, and, while in Paris, painted ThreeSymbols (c. surrealistpaintings like Harbourand Room,and prepar-

Fig. 1. EileenAgar: 'Sea Swans', 1952, gaucheandfrottage, 38.1 x 50.8 cm. Collectionof the artist.

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This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Wed, 5 Mar 2014 11:37:56 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Direct contactwith the surrealistsstimulated Eileen Agar to pursue experimentswith differentmediums, and with chance. BattleCry, reproduced as The Light Yearsin the LondonBulletin in 1939, uses a variety of materials: differentpaints, molten lead poured on copper plate, plaster on tin, and a copper border mounted on plywood. She describedthis "armoured" painting as "bullet-proof', in referenceto the im- minentthreat of war. Unable to work during the war, she continued after 1945 to experimentwith collage, and withfrottage, the technique of rubbingwith a soft pencil, crayon or charcoal on paper or canvas over a texturedsurface, which had been used by Max Ernst in his Natural Historyof 1925. Sea Swans (Fig. 1) consists of gouache and frottage,and the influenceof paper cut-outs is also visible, with the sharp-edged contrasts and negative-positiveeffects. Eileen Agar has noted that the genesis of her works is frequently automatic (in a taped conversationwith Conroy Mad- dox). She would begin by drawing lines in pencil, and build up an image from that point: an element of surprise remains, and the result is a decorative metamorphosis. But it would be a mistake to em- phasise her use of automatism as dogmatic or pro- grammatically surrealist. She has said that Sur- realism provided, for her, a way of attacking prob- lems. Although her work remained on the abstract side of Surrealism, it was never subsequently totally abstract, almost always containing what Read des- cribed as "personages". The surrealists certainly encouraged her in the directionof figurativecontent, and although Penrose said that her work was already in a state of transitionbetween abstractionand repre- sentation,this conflict, if it can be so described, in her Fig. 2. IthellColquhoun: 'Scylla' 1938, oil on board,91.4 work of the early thirties,was resolved under x 61 cm. Tate Gallery. swiftly the influenceof the surrealistsin the directionof figur- ing the essay 'Swanage or Seaside Surrealism'. This ation. was published in the ArchitecturalReview in April 1936, Both , in his introductionto her exhi- and celebrates the extraordinary monuments of bition at the Brook Street Gallery in 1964, and Swanage as disorienting surrealist objects. Eileen Roland Penrose, refereither directlyor obliquely to Agar began to collect objects from the beaches and the "feminine" quality of her art. Read describes the countrysidearound Swanage, natural 'ready-mades' intimacy of her work, and says: "By dislocating like the fragmentof anchor chain deformedby ancient charm, by fragmentingit and converting it into encrustationsuntil it resembled a bird, which Nash barbaric jewels, Eileen Agar deprives charm of its photographed and incorporated into the photo- sentimentality."It seems to me that this is true of her montage Swanage. It was, at least in part, the influ- post-war work, but there is nothing markedlyfemin- ence of Nash which encouraged her to make surrealist ine about Movementin Space. Eileen Agar continued to objects. Eileen Agar remembers the firstversion of exhibitwith the surrealists,in the surrealistsection of the Angelof Anarchy as her earliest found and altered the Association of Independent Artistsin 1938, again object; a plaster bust which had resembled her with the A.I.A. in 1940 at the , husband, but whose dazzling whiteness so shocked and in the Surrealism Today exhibitionorganised by her that she swathed it in layers of differentmaterials. Zwemmer in 1940. This was firstexhibited at the InternationalSurrealist The number of women exhibitingwith the surreal- Exhibition in Amsterdam in 1938. David andJonathan, ists was steadilyincreasing in the thirties,largely as a an object resembling the very complex early objects measure of their greater independence. Also, the by Breton, Dali and of 1931, incor- emphasis on the making or selectingof objects which, porating among other things, a doll's leg, was repro- stimulatedby Dali from1931, had become an increas- duced in ,no. 8, 1936. Three oils and five ingly important part of Surrealism, facilitated the objects were selected for the 1936 London exhibition participationof those on the peripheryof the move- of which the most interestingwas Quadriga,a work ment. Imagination was more useful than technical which has affinitieswith abstract . training for the realisation of surrealistobjects, and

38 THE OXFORD ART JOURNAL - April1980

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Fig. 3. IthellColquhoun: 'Gouffres Amers' 1939, oil oncanvas, 71.2 x 91.3cm. HunterianArt Gallery, Glasgow.

everyone,not just theartists, was encouragedto join and orthodoxlysurrealist, closer to continental, in. At the 1936London exhibition, for example, apart Europeansurrealists like Dali and Magrittein inspir- from Eileen Agar, Margaret Nash, Paul's wife, ation. Afterexhibiting at the CheltenhamMunicipal showed "Natural objects interpreted",and Diana Gallery,and withthe Fine ArtsSociety in 1936,Ithell Brinton-Leeand Shiela Legge also exhibitedobjects. Colquhounwas firstassociated with the surrealists at Grace Pailthorpeexhibited three works. She was a Mesens' London Gallerywhere she showeda water- doctorwho had specialisedin 'psychologicalmede- colour,Double Coconut, in theLiving Art Exhibition of cine', and her article'The ScientificAspect of Sur- January1939. Althoughshe stilldescribed herself as realism', treating painting as psychoanalytical "Independent" in the catalogue biographieswhich fodder,provoked one of the few serioustheoretical accompaniedthis exhibition in theLondon Bulletin, her rows centredon the Englishsurrealists. Among the auto-biographicalnote underlinesaffinities with the non-Englishcontributors were several women already surrealists:"I learntto draw at the Slade school. I establishedwithin Surrealism: thephoto- have not yetlearnt to paint. I am teachingmyself to grapher,Meret Oppenheim,who showed fouroils carve and to write.Sometimes I copy nature,some- and twoobjects including her classic fur-covered cup timesimagination: they are equallyuseful. My lifeis and saucer, , the Czech painterToyen, uneventfulbut I sometimeshave an interesting Jacqueline Breton,and, rathercuriously given the dream." The dominantinfluence for her had been committedabstraction of her work,Sophie Taeuber- Dali, whose lectureshe attendedin London on July Arp. 1st 1936. On thisoccasion he had mountedthe plat- Amongthose who joined the Englishsurrealists at formdressed in a diving-suit,and nearlysuffocated differenttimes after the 1936 exhibition,were Edith whenthe helmet stuck. She laterdescribed his perfor- Rimmington,Emmy Bridgewater and IthellColqu- mance: "He gave the speech 'Fantdmesparanoiaques houn. On the wholeit is trueof thesenewer recruits authentiques'in French but pronouncedit as thoughit in England that theirwork is more self-consciouslywere Spanish [...]. It seemed that he did actually

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This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Wed, 5 Mar 2014 11:37:56 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions .... --.. .

realism Today in 1940, but in 1942 exhibited in a ~ ~ ~ ~ surrealist show at the International Art Centre, ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~i4 L d~~~~~~~~ * i~~~~~~~~~~~ A L ~ ~ ~C~ ~ ~ ~ ~I, , which included v' ' A> in organised by Agar and Maddox. In the 1940s she adopted automatic techniques like frottageand in 1950 published an account of Surrealist automatic processes, 'The Mantic Stain'. It is quite clear fromScylla (Fig. 2), GouffresAmers (Fig. 3), and the Heart- dripping lips moulded on a '" ' ..... , . heart-shapedobject, that Ithell Colquhoun's work is, at this period, very firmlyrooted in Thirties Surreal- ism, and belongs to that "other route" defined by Breton as the fixingof dream images. However, there :..|... r. .. is also what seems to be a challenge, so explicit as to verge on parody, of a specificform of sexual imagery exploited by the surrealists, that which treats land- scape metaphoricallyas a woman. Andre Masson, in ink drawings of the late thirtiesdraws hills and trees to form parts of a woman's body. , less interestedthan Masson in mythologyand metamor- phosis, draws women, or parts of them, into land- scapes. The frontispiece for Les Mains Libres, for example, reproduced in The LondonBulletin in Febru- 'ii t. i:...... ary 1939, shows a woman lounging along an arcaded ...... :1i...... bridge. Ithell Colquhoun offersinstead a reciprocally l-y - i :. male Amersforms the 4 pihrs e i landscape. Gouffres landscape into the shape of an old river god. Rather than using Dali's double-image technique, as in, for example, *- L ||- where Gala's are also ar- A. . Impressionsof Africa, eyes . . - caded a .-W entrances to building, Ithell Colquhoun ~~~~~~~~~- %- I: ?Ir models her figure-landscapeon a technique like that _. _.BE^' .._ _ :rki ...... ,. _._ ... of the sixteenth-century painter Arcimboldo, Fig. 4. A pagefrom La RevolutionSurrealiste no. 1, Decem- and curiously echoes the figure-landscapes of ber1924. the seventeenth-centuryFlemish painter Joost de Momper. Examples of such work were shown in FantasticArt, and Surrealismat the Museum of evoke phantasmic presences which generated a tense Modern Art in 1936, and were much prized by the atmosphere [...]. Dali was minute, feverish, with surrealists. Arcimboldo created heads out of piled bones brittle as a bird's, a mop of dark hair and fruits,vegetables and so on, massing disparate objects greenisheyes [...]." until they melted into another form. In Scylla, the She had already contributed a short text to The rocks that threatened Ulysses beside the whirlpool London Bulletin,'The Double Village' in December Charybdis, are transformedinto a phallic landscape. 1938 and in June 1939 she published two more In this case the technique, particularlyin the sugges- articles in the same journal, 'The Volcano' and 'The tion of a ghostlywaterline, is more akin to the type of Echoing Bruise'. These read like accounts of dreams, double image used by Dali in Metamorphosisof Nar- in which a strain of narrative fantasy replaces the cissus,where a figureis repeated but ossified, meta- striking juxtapositions of images in surrealist morphosed into a rock. In Scylla the rock itselfbe- automatic texts, and have more in common with comes living tissue, in a dream-like transsubstanti- Herbert Read's novel The GreenChild. In the same ation. These appear to be unique examples of explicit monthshe had a joint exhibitionwith Roland Penrose sexual imagery in Ithell Colquhoun's work of this at the Mayor Gallery, organised with the collabor- time, and unique also as an almost mocking response ation of Mesens' London Gallery. She exhibited to the prevailingimagery of eroticismwithin Surreal- fourteenoils and two objects: Death's Head and Foot, ism. and Heart,both of 1938. Scyllawas exhibited here for The role of woman within Surrealism, both in the firsttime, and the exact technique she uses in it termsof an ideal of love and of an ideology of erotic- was, she says, derived from Dali, although she has ism is too complex to be examined here. Only a few since preferredto describe it as "magic realism" or aspects of the problem can be discussed below. The "super realism". She rarely exhibited with the sur- attitude to woman was an ambivalent one from the realistsagain, partlybecause she disagreedwith Mesens start, which inevitably influenced those women in 1940 over his proposals to weld the surrealistgroup writers and artists who moved into the surrealist togetherin England. She did not participate in Sur- orbit. Surrealismbecame at the same time both a pro-

40 THE OXFORDARTJOURNAL - April 1980

This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Wed, 5 Mar 2014 11:37:56 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions mise of social and sexual freedom, in that it chal- F{s~~~~~~MiL lenged repressive bourgeois conventions, and a 1 E m,.ffvH threat, in that women artists and writers were in ^: _ } danger of becoming trapped in a narcissistic auto- eroticism; especially as eroticism grew into a central pre-occupationof the movement. At the veryheart of surrealistthought lay the belief that the reality of the inner psychic world could triumph over the repressive reality of the external world. The surrealistsstruggled to reconcilethis belief with their commitmentto social and political change and the need for revolutionaryaction. The idea of woman was linked from the beginning very closely with the inner psychic life, to the extent that she even becomes a symbol of the unconscious. At the same time, and alternatively, she could become a model forrevolutionary action in the external world. This is why the cases of the Papin sisters, who murdered their employers, and Violette Nozieres, were celebrated by the surrealists as examples of revolt against intolerable oppression. Madness was also seen as a threat to the established social order, and, without examining very far the causes of this, was recognised in certain cases to be specifically related to women. Hysteria, for example, had been defined by Charcot in 1875, and was still believed to be, an almost exclusivelyfemale mental disorder. The surrealists commemmorated the fiftiethanniversary of hysteriawith a page of photographsof a young girl, Fig. 5. A pagefrom La RevolutionSurrealiste no. 12, De- an hysteric, in a series of 'attitudespassionnelles', of cember1929. Photo-collageby Magritte. clearly erotic interest. More significantly, wrote a moving account of a period of madness and months spent in a Spanish asylum in 'Down Below', published in the surrealistmagazine tended to be the counterpartof that in the firstissue. VVV, no. 3, 1944; and there was the case of Nadja, a A paintingof a woman in the centreis enclosed by the disturbed and clairvoyant girl whom Breton used to lines "je ne vois pas [la femme]cachee dans la foret", meet and walk with on the streetsof Paris. Her hold again framedby photographsof all the surrealists,but on reality became increasingly precarious, and she this time with closed eyes. All specific reference is was finallylocked in a lunatic asylum. The account of eliminated, and woman, "the collective person of the this, Nadja, broughtout in 1928, provoked one of the woman", as Breton described her in Les vasescommu- most sustained of surrealistcampaigns, against the in- nicants,is now presented as the guide to the uncon- human treatmentof mental patientsin institutions. scious, the incarnation of the marvellous, symbol of An example of this duality - between woman as the psychiclife. symbolof the unconscious, and harbingerof social re- The next point I want to illustratebriefly, is the form- is demonstratedby a comparison of two pages ambiguous attitude of the surrealists to women in from the surrealist review, La RevolutionSurrealiste, termsof sexuality. In 1928 a small group of surrealists from the firstissue of 1924 (Fig. 5), and the last of held lengthyconversations on the subject of sexuality, 1929 (Fig. 6). In the first,photographs of the surreal- which were published in full in La RevolutionSurreal- ists (all men) surround a photograph of the anarchist iste,no. 11. The impressionof sexual liberationthat is Germaine Berton. The only caption is a quotation given by the very factof having such open discussion fromBaudelaire: "Woman is the being who projects is belied by the lack of openness in two areas - the greatest shadow or the greatest light over our women's sexualityand homosexuality.No women are dreams." Aragon, however, elsewhere in that issue, present, and the conversation is conducted on a indicates how Berton, who had killed Plateau, the personal rather than a theoretical level. Male and leader of the extreme rightwing group, Camelots du female homosexualityare discussed, but the powerful Roy, could be of revolutionaryimportance: "I can only opposition of Breton, Peret and Unik bring this to a prostratemyself before this woman, admirablein every- premature end, Breton threateningto walk out if the thing,who is the greatestchallenge I know to slavery, subject persists. A recurring question is how far the most beautiful protest raised in the face of the sexual enjoyment can be recognised to be mutual. world against the hideous lie of happiness." In the Aragon, towards the end of the second meeting, last issue is a collage by Magritte which is clearly in- makes the obvious point that the whole discussion

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This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Wed, 5 Mar 2014 11:37:56 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions must be largely invalidated because no women are the contrary case, is served by censorship. Such presentto give theiropinion: objects, too particularand too personal in conception will lack the astonishing power of suggestion which certainalmost ordinaryobjects possess by chance, like forexample the two leaves 'Before continuing,I want to state that what gold-leafelectroscope (the "Aragon are in the centre of a on the worriesme, in mostof the answersformulated perfectlyjoined cage, of a the leaves here,is a certainidea I detectconcerning the in- approach galvanised rod, jump apart) equalityof men and women. I will say nothing ...." To this categoryof the potent but not over-sys- about physicallove untilwe have firstadmitted tematised object belongs, I think, Meret thetruth, that men and womenhave equal rights Oppenheim's Fur-coveredCup, Saucerand Spoonof 1936, in it.' universal ratherthan particularor personal in its dis- Breton 'Whoeversuggested anything to thecontrary?' placed eroticism. Aragon 'Let me explain; the validityof everythingwe At the end of 1959, the InternationalExhibition of seemsto me undermined the fatal have said by Surrealism at the Galerie Daniel Cordier in Paris, ofthe male point of view'.'' predominance was devoted to the theme of eroticism. But although women played a large part in the organisationof this exhibition - Mimi Parent, for example, created the The conversation is then swiftlycut short, with a cryptdedicated to fetishism,and Meret Oppenheim question about fetishism,and Aragon takes no further organised the inaugural festival- thereis littlein the part. It seems extraordinarythat the points raised visual work to rival the unique sexual confidence of with such clarityand foresightby Aragon should be 's poetry of this period. Leonora brushed aside, never to recur, in spite of theirobvious Carrington was invited to contribute, and wrote to importance. The very fact that Aragon is capable of Breton with a proposal for the construction of an seeing it as a problem, while Breton is not, indicates erotic environment,which was reprintedin fullin the the degree of cloudiness, that was to cover the ques- catalogue. The room that she proposed was to be tion of sexualityunder Breton's leadership. "something between the baroque cathedral and the This leads to a finalpoint which I only want to raise Swiss grandfatherclock, containing an organ with briefly,that of eroticism,and the response to it in the fortystops multiplied in octaves (very evocative for works of the . I have already sug- the musical). A bestiary rich in erotic apparatus gested that the surrealists tended to encourage the would furnish the room. Also, inflatable rubber femininityof women artists.This is raised to a kind of sirens, chocolate choristers, nuns in steel for the defenceby an artistlike Leonor Fini, whose worksare masochists, giraffe-cupboards in pastel coloured narcissisticallyerotic, frequentlyself-portraits. The glass forthe voyeurs ...." As far as eroticismis con- two Ithell Colquhoun paintings I discussed treated cerned, this room sounds a ratherobjective compen- reciprocalsexual imageryin almost parodic terms. dium, a reflectiverather than a personal and femin- The surrealistobject which, under Dali's guidance ine erotic imagery, a superior version of Clovis in Le Surrealismeau Servicede la Revolution,No. 3, 1931, Trouille's perversion catalogue paintings. To male was proposed as a central formof surrealistactivity, surrealist imagery like Bellmer's perverse and per- included as one of its most importantcategories the functorydolls, or Styrsky'scollage The Fine Ham of "object functioning symbolically", which was 1934, a gammon ending in a pair of stockingedlegs, intended to awaken erotic desires and fantasies. Of there is no female response. An unusually weak work the five objects reproduced, including Giacometti's by of 1957, La Belle Ouvreuseis a curiously SuspendedBall, two were by women: Gala Eluard asexual vision of a woman's torso, which suggestsan (Dali), and Valentine Hugo. The most explicitly unconscious resistanceto auto-eroticsexual imagery. sexual was Dali's, which involved plunging a sugar These few questions, brieflyraised, obviously do lump into a glass of warm milk, and contained as ac- not cover the fullrange of the problem of the potential cessories, pubic hair and an eroticphotograph. Gala's of women within Surrealism, particularly after the exhibit included two bending antennae and two war. Surrealism becomes increasinglyself-conscious, sponges, one of whichwas in the formof a breast. resorting to awkward references and disclaimers The role of the surrealistobject as the poetic projec- about "the object-woman"; this ambiguityremained tion of unconscious desires was fullyrecognised, and unresolved. it was partlyto maintain thisthat Breton shortlyafter- BibliographicNote wards condemned the over-expliciteroticism in some EileenAgar. A Decade ofDiscoveries New Art Centre, 1976. Preface of those of for which share with by Roland Penrose them, Dali, example, Surrealism- Ithell 1936- his the characteristicof the latent Colquhoun:Paintings, Drawings, Collages painting making 1976, New Orion Galleries, Cornwall, 1976. This includes a content, in Freud's terminology, manifest.Such detailed account of her meeting, and reasons for disagreement objects are open to a more limited interpretationthan with Mesens. "objects of the same kind less systematicallydeter- Xaviere ForneretSurrealisme et Sexualite Gallimard, Paris Paul TheSurrealist Movement in Cornell 1971 mined. The voluntary incorporation of the latent Ray England U.P., content into the manifest content weakens the ten- Both Eileen Agar and Ithell Colquhoun are currently represented in the exhibition dency to dramatisation and magnificationwhich, in L'Altra Meta dell'Avanguardia 1910-1940, in the Palazzo Reale Milan.

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