Humour, freedom of mind, celebration of femininity and an unequalled myth-making drive suffuse the works of Eileen Agar but also of Ithell Colquhoun, Emmy Bridgwater, Edith Rimmington, Grace Pailthorpe and Lee Miller. This is a special opportunity to hear Michel Remy discuss their phenomenal output of paintings, collages and objects with a focus on his latest book Eileen Agar: Dreaming Oneself Awake.
Drawing on personal conversations with the artist as well as original research, Michel Remy examines in Eileen Agar: Dreaming Oneself Awake the life and work of the artist throughout her long career, from her passage through Cubism and abstraction to Surrealism, as well as her dedicated participation in Surrealist activities in England and abroad. Each period is illustrated with many striking images, including rare photographs, and supported by penetrating interpretations. The powerful myth-making drive that underlies Agar’s output is revealed, as well the tenderness, humour, poetry, love of nature and the world, subversion of the laws of reality, and celebration of femininity that suffuses each of her works.
Biography
Michel Remy is Emeritus Professor of English Literature and Art History at the University of Nice, France. The leading authority on British Surrealism, he has published widely on the subject and has co-curated several Surrealist exhibitions in France and England. He is the author of many books, including The Surrealist World of Desmond Morris (1991), Surrealism in Britain (1999) and On the Thirteenth Stroke of Midnight: Surrealist Poetry in Britain (2013).