NOTES ON AN ARTIST: ITHELL COLQUHOUN

CHELTENHAM, THE HEAD OF HOLOFERNES, THE TARO AND THE TATE

While I am no art historian, I am an obsessive art lover, excellent googler, consumer of endless podcasts and books, and enthusiastic visitor of galleries. With this in mind, this is the first in a series of articles which will dive into the practice of an artist, introduce some works and give some recommendations of things to look at, listen to, or visit to find out more.

In each article, we'll do a little dive into an artist—living or dead—who has some point of interest for our community, be that proximity, commonality or suggestion. To kick this off, we have the perfect artist: Ithell Colquhoun. Having quite a moment currently, this gives a proliferation of information and enjoyable experiences available for me to share, and she has more than one overlap with the members of our collective. All this to say, I think there is a wealth of interest I can cram into this tiny dive into her life, and hopefully you come out the other side with either a new interesting fun fact or perhaps a new artist to join me in loving. Let's jump in!

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ITHELL COLQUHOUN

Ithell Colquhoun was born in Shillong in India in 1906, and like most children of the British Raj, sent back to England as an infant to be educated. At the time, Cheltenham was a popular retirement destination for the families and officials who served in India, and it was to here that Colquhoun was sent — meet our first connection.

From her formative memories, she seemed to have formed a lifelong connection to India, and felt strongly the feeling of displacement or a lack of identity with her now adopted home. I think maybe this subconsciously informed her later explorations in spirituality and the occult, the search for something more, for a connection to something, be it the land itself or its ideas. Nevertheless, she attended Cheltenham Ladies College, where she seemed to be a fairly precocious child and showed a propensity for art, going on to study at the Cheltenham School of Arts and Crafts from 1925 - 1927. This school went on to be renamed to the Gloucestershire College of Art, then, after several iterations and mergings, eventually became the University of Gloucestershire. (Notable alumni can be found within the Sixteen Gallery Collective, not least the gallery's founder, Andy Owen-Smith completed his degree in Fine Art here, and both Arthur Owen-Smith and myself undertook the Art Foundation—a little later)

Canna, 1936

On completing her studies here, she moved to London to attend the Slade School of Fine Art (1927-- 30), and while it's not clear she returned to Cheltenham for any length of time, or in fact had much of an affinity to it, she did have her first solo exhibition at the Cheltenham Municipal Art Gallery and "Canna" became the first of her works in a public collection here.

Throughout her career, Colquhoun was inspired by and deeply explored different philosophies from across the world, reinterpreting ideas from spiritual traditions such as the Jewish Kabbalah, Christian mysticism, Egyptian mythology and Indian Tantra. Alongside the Occult, Western Esotericism and Alchemy.

During her time at the Slade School and in the years following, she would make the work that, for me, has shot straight to the heart, fascinating and meaningful, bold statements beautifully rendered. Considering how wildly modern it feels even now, I can only imagine how bold and daring it must have seemed when she was first showing it in the 1930s. Works from this time include:

- Judith Showing the head of Holofernes, 1929

- Judgment of Paris, 1930

- Death of the Virgin 1930

- Aaron Meeting Moses, 1932

- Song of Songs, 1933

- Canna, 1936

- Water--Flower, 1938

- Scylla, 1938

- Interior, 1939

Her first solo exhibition in 1936 at Cheltenham Municipal Art Gallery included many of these works, such as Song of Songs, Judgement of Paris, Death of the Virgin and and Aaron Meeting Moses and Canna. I can only posit that to those who visited, this work must have been groundbreaking, a wild talent taking on subjects of historical resonance in a new visual language, a bright new voice, if only you were listening.

Song of Songs, 1933

Death of the Virgin 1930

She showed many times in London during this period, including at the Royal Academy in 1931 (Judith Showing the head of Holofernes), the Whitechapel Art Gallery, and with the New English Art Club in 1931 (Death of the Virgin)—here we find another link, with collective member Mike Skinner being an active member of the still running club!

Before carrying on with the life of this extraordinary artist, let's take this moment to explore 3 paintings specifically.

First. Judith Showing the Head of Holofernes. This won first prize at the Slade School show that year, and without seeing anything else, I will happily say, well deservedly. Now, many, really many, phenomenal artists have taken on this particular subject, not least worth mentioning Michelangelo (it's in the Sistine Chapel), Artemisia Gentileschi, Goya, Caravaggio and Gustav Klimt. Colquhoun's take on it, though, really was just different, modern, unlike the traditional style of these historic baroque paintings. To (I think) make my point, here it is alongside a traditional work after Cristofano Allori made in Florence in 1557, which you can find in the permanent collection at Dulwich Picture Gallery.

 Judgment of Paris, 1930

The second painting I'll mention is Judgment of Paris. Again, another rendering of baroque, classical-mythology narratives, and again, another knockout piece. Note the women, their power, their strength and their weight in reality, despite the complete lack of realism. And Paris, his passive demeanour, uninteresting, and hardly taking up space in the corner of the painting, a reversal of hierarchy from the usual male-centred renderings. Colquhoun paints each woman differently, beautifully treating different body types, be it with abs of steel (today's gym culture would much approve) or sumptuous rolls of flesh, tough biceps or soft skin, pubic hair, and cropped '30s haircuts or long locks reminiscent of classic beauties. It's hard for me to overstate how much I am in awe of this painting.

Water--Flower, 1938

The last one (I promise, I'll stop) is Water-Flower. This piece was originally made for display in the women's ward at Moreton-In-Marsh Hospital. Imagine convalescing in the company of this. I can't lie, I'm not sure I'd be in a rush to recover, I'd be too busy planning an art heist. But I do hope it brought many people a moment of respite, just to enjoy the incredible way in which Colquhoun captured the different surfaces and structures of, in the air and under the water. Sublime, truly.

This little enthusiastic rave hasn't even mentioned my two favourite pieces. One of which— Scylla, is mentioned and analysed brilliantly in the fantastic episode of the Great Women Artists podcast with (actual) art historian and world expert Amy Hale. I can't recommend this enough if you are interested in Ithell Colquhoun; it delves into much of her later work and gives a wonderful overview of the artist in context in an informative yet informal and enjoyable way. Click the image for a link.

Scylla, 1938

So, toward the end of the '30s and into the '40s, Colquhoun embraced surrealism, becoming interested in exploring the unconscious mind and sacred feminine power. This is when she developed her double meaning "Magic realism" paintings (a term she adopted well before it became 'Magical Realism', the writing style synonymous with the likes of Gabriel Garcia Marquez in the 1950s), which perfectly described her real yet multi-faceted, at times otherworldly, fictional realities. She had met Dali and other notable surrealists in Paris and England throughout the 1930s, and in 1939 she joined the Surrealist group in England.

Dance of the Nine Maidens, 1940

Around this time, she also began joining magical societies and becoming a part of the modern occult revival, alongside spending more and more time split between London and West Cornwall. Here, throughout the '40s, she encountered ancient sacred sites and became interested in Celtic folklore, enveloping herself further in myth and magic. I think all this makes sense of someone displaced—a feeling she felt strongly in her early years, which stayed with her forever— of searching for meaning and identity, of connection to place and to land.

Her work in the '40s and throughout the rest of her life encompassed all her developing thoughts on the occult, and she wrote extensively alongside her painting. She developed into abstraction, and experimented profusely with painting and printing, developing automatic techniques including 'Decalcomania', a process of randomly applying paint and pressing sheets together and peeling apart to form marks that can be developed on two surfaces in opposite.

Taro, 1977

She blended her surrealist experiments and applied them to her beliefs and experiences of the esoteric and alchemy, and much of this culminated in one of her life's great works, her interpretation of the Tarot deck – her most accomplished fusion of her artistic and magical practice. Again, for more on this, check out the podcast mentioned above.

Colquhoun continued making work until well into her 70s. She had retrospectives in Penzance and Exeter, alongside many of her works being in public collections by the time she died in 1988, and yet, I don't believe she got anywhere near the recognition she deserved in her lifetime.

I believe she wanted to be important. I think she had a voice, a distinct language. But I think she was before her time. Not just because she was a woman making art, but because she was constantly pushing at boundaries placed on society as a whole, testing the limits of understanding and belief, and holding many truths and opinions at once, which she seemed boldly proud to voice through her work.

There is currently a six-room wonderful exhibition at the Tate Britain, which I implore you to visit if you can and where all the photographs in this article were taken, that I hope will go some way to opening up the work of this amazing woman to new audiences. Find out more about that here. And also, the bio on Tate's site has an interesting overview in a much more professional manner than what you find here, so give that a read. The exhibition is both extensive, immersive yet not overwhelming, with each room taking on a different period of her work, it's a beautiful look into the life of an artist.

I hope she would have been happy to know the moment we're in now existed.

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That's it for our first paddle into the life of an artist. I hope you enjoyed it and found some of the recommendations useful. We're completely open to any suggestions of who we should look at next time, so if you have any underrated favourites, personal connections, or just someone you'd like someone else to find out more about for you, drop us a message!

Ellie