Surrealism and Psychoanalysis in the Work of Grace Pailthorpe and Reuben Mednikoff

Surrealism and Psychoanalysis in the work of Grace Pailthorpe and Reuben Mednikoff: 1935-1940 Lee Ann Montanaro Ph.D. History of Art The University of Edinburgh 2010 Declaration I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work and has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification except as specified. ABSTRACT The story of the collaboration between the psychoanalyst Dr Grace Pailthorpe and the artist Reuben Mednikoff is indeed an extraordinary one. The aim of this thesis is to throw light upon their joint research project between 1935, when they first met, and 1940, when they were expelled from the British Surrealist group with which they had been closely involved since its official launch in 1936. The project that Pailthorpe and Mednikoff plunged into just days after they first met in February 1935 focused on how art could be used as a way of curing mental problems. Paintings and drawings produced ‘automatically’ were used as a means to bring memories to a conscious level. Many personal tensions, obsessions and fears that had lain dormant and repressed were released and detailed commentaries and explanations followed every work they produced in order for the exercise to be fully therapeutic. The aim was to externalise the unconscious and reintegrate it with the conscious. Despite the fact that Pailthorpe’s work was hailed as ‘the best and most truly Surrealist’ by the leader of the Surrealist movement, André Breton, at the 1936 International Surrealist exhibition in London, which brought the movement to Britain, the couple were expelled from the British Surrealist group just four years later and moved to America into relative obscurity. After their deaths, Pailthorpe and Mednikoff’s drawings and paintings were dispersed and their commentaries never read. My thesis provides biographies of Pailthorpe and Mednikoff before they met. It analyses the work they made together, i discussing the impact on their thinking not only of Surrealism but also of psychoanalytic theory, notably the work of Melanie Klein. Apart from this, the thesis also reintegrates the couple into the history of Surrealism in England. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not have been possible without my parents, Alex and Marianne, who I would like to thank for their continuing support and encouragement during the years that the thesis was researched and written. I will always be grateful to my supervisor Professor Elizabeth Cowling who offered constructive criticism, pointed out a number of useful references that I had missed, corrected errors in my various drafts and provided editorial advice. Deepest gratitude goes to Kris for his loyalty, love and understanding during a sequence of challenging periods. My warmest thanks also goes to Richard Pailthorpe and Tony Black for their patience and because they offered numerous insights into the material. Ann Simpson and Kirstie Meehan (from the Dean Gallery in Edinburgh) deserve mention too because their help throughout the various stages of my research has been invaluable as well as the comments and suggestions made by my friend Ed. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS: Abstract i Acknowledgements iii Table of Contents iv Introduction 1 CHAPTER ONE: Introducing Dr Grace Pailthorpe (1883-1934) 1.1 Introduction 8 1.2 1883-1922 8 1.3 The ‘Medical Research Council’ (1923-1929) 20 1.4 Publications 31 1.5 Introduction 43 1.6 1883-1922 49 1.7 Conclusion 51 CHAPTER TWO: Introducing Reuben Mednikoff (1906-1934) 2.1 Introduction 53 2.2 Childhood and Education 53 2.3 Discovery of Psychoanalysis and Surrealism 58 2.4 Conclusion 73 CHAPTER THREE: The beginnings of the couple’s research project (1935-1936) 3.1 Introduction 75 3.2 First meetings 75 3.3 Pierre Janet 78 3.4 Rejection of Sigmund Freud’s methods 84 3.5 Melanie Klein 87 3.6 The couple’s research project 93 iv 3.7 Conclusion 104 CHAPTER FOUR: Towards Surrealism (1936) 4.1 Introduction 106 4.2 The International Surrealist exhibition 106 4.3 Conclusion 127 CHAPTER FIVE: The ‘Birth Trauma’ period (1938-1940) 5.1 Introduction 128 5.2 The ‘Birth Trauma’ lecture (1938) 131 5.3 The ‘Birth Trauma Series’ 134 5.4 The ‘Birth Trauma’ lecture (1940) 154 5.5 Conclusion 157 CHAPTER SIX: On Surrealism and Psychoanalysis (1938-1939) 6.1 Introduction 160 6.2 ‘The Scientific Aspect of Surrealism’ 160 6.3 The Guggenheim Jeune exhibition (1939) 173 6.4 Conclusion 199 CHAPTER SEVEN: The War Years (1938-1940) 7.1 Introduction 201 7.2 Part 1 201 7.3 Part 2 222 7.4 Conclusion 244 v Conclusion 245 Bibliography 252 Appendix vi Introduction The subject of my thesis is the personal and working relationship between Dr. Grace Pailthorpe (1883-1971) and Reuben Mednikoff (1906-1972). It focuses on the role art played within Pailthorpe and Mednikoff‟s study of the infantile unconscious and the „the theory of birth trauma‟. The couple‟s paintings were the result of a programme of psychological research in which they were the „rabbits‟. They produced a large number of works laden with psychoanalytic symbols that supposedly represent infantile sexuality and that were painted with the purpose of being subjected to analytic scrutiny. The work of Pailthorpe and Mednikoff is a largely unexplored area and neither of them has been the subject of a detailed biography. Moreover, many of their works are inaccessible to the public and this has provided problems for the thesis. There is also very little secondary literature on the pair, but they are not totally forgotten figures thanks to the various writings of Andrew Wilson, David Maclagan and Michel Remy. Maclagan‟s research on Pailthorpe‟s work and its relation to art therapy was published in his essays „Making for Mother‟1 and in „Between Psychoanalysis and Surrealism: the collaboration between Grace Pailthorpe and Reuben Mednikoff‟.2 Remy‟s keen interest in the obscure couple is also evident in his writings on Surrealism in Britain whilst Wilson has explored the couple‟s 1 Walsh, Nigel (ed.). 1998. Sluice Gates of the Mind: the collaborative work of Dr Grace Pailthorpe and Reuben Mednikoff. Exh. Cat. (Leeds, Leeds Museums & Galleries): 39-47 2 Maclagan, David. 1991. „Between Psychoanalysis and Surrealism: the collaboration between Grace Pailthorpe and Reuben Mednikoff‟, Free Associations, 3/1: 33-50 1 complex relationship with Surrealism in his work on the book and exhibition of „Sluice Gates of the Mind‟ in 1998.3 Apart from these publications, in 1982, through his research on the origins and early history of the Institute for the Scientific Treatment of Delinquency, the psychiatrist Dr David Rumney happened to come across a copy of Mednikoff‟s will. He followed this up and gained access to the couple‟s research material. However, the book that Rumney was supposed to be writing, whose subject was the accumulated research of the Pailthorpes and which was based on the mass of handwritten and typed notes and other material that Rumney was in possession of, has never materialised. This is probably because he died before it could be completed. Unfortunately, even though Rumney‟s daughter Lucy has access to her father‟s unpublished manuscript, my repeated attempts to contact her have proved fruitless. Still, some of Rumney‟s notes are in the Grace Pailthorpe/Reuben Mednikoff Archive at the Dean Gallery in Edinburgh and various researchers have made use of some of the material. So even though his work has never been published, Rumney‟s efforts are still referred to and made use of. My thesis is based on the study of original documents, most of which are unpublished, housed in the Pailthorpe/Mednikoff archive. The archive was purchased, through Andrew Wilson, in two parts in 1999 and 2000 with the Assistance of the Friends of the National Libraries, by the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. It complements the very strong Surrealist collection already there, 3 Walsh, Nigel (ed.). 1998. Sluice Gates of the Mind: the collaborative work of Dr Grace Pailthorpe and Reuben Mednikoff. Exh. Cat. (Leeds, Leeds Museums & Galleries) 2 notably the Roland Penrose Archive and the Gabrielle Keiller Bequest. Other archives which contain primary material on both Pailthorpe and Mednikoff include the Hyman Kreitman Research Centre at Tate Britain, the National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Witt Library at the Courtauld Institute in London. This primary material is the core of my thesis, which has been organized around important events, moments and groups of works, arranged in a chronological order. I have purposely quoted from these documents very extensively throughout the thesis, making up for the fact that relatively few of them are in the public domain. This is because the writings of Pailthorpe and Mednikoff are often very vividly and characteristically expressed and deserve quotation for this reason too. I am also indebted to Pailthorpe‟s great nephew, Richard Pailthorpe, and Mednikoff‟s nephew, Tony Black, who kindly provided photographs, family documents and information about Pailthorpe and Mednikoff. In my thesis, I weave biographical, contextual and critical commentary together into a narrative which has a chronological structure. Although I am unable to make any comments on psychoanalysis from a medical perspective, I am aware of its precarious position today. Thus, I stress that in my thesis I am presenting the attitudes of Pailthorpe, Mednikoff and the Surrealists during the 1930s rather than the attitudes on psychoanalysis that are held at present, since many of the theories of Freud, Klein et al are disputed. Moreover, even though Pailthorpe believed that it was, psychoanalysis is not a science. As a therapeutic practice, psychoanalysis has less respectability nowadays and early psychoanalytic theory is often seen as dubious.

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