Ithell Colquhoun

1906 1988

British artist (1906–1988)

Ithell Colquhoun was a British painter, occultist, poet and author. Stylistically her artwork was affiliated with Surrealism. In the early 1930s she met André Breton in Paris, and later started working with Surrealist automatism techniques in her writing and painting. In the late 1930s, Colquhoun was part of the British Surrealist Group before being expelled because she refused to renounce her association with occult groups, including the Ordo Templi Orientis and the Fellowship of Isis. Despite her break with the movement, Colquhoun was a lifelong adherent to Surrealism and its automatic techniques.

Works