Eileen Agar: Angel of Anarchy

Fascinating exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery on the life and work of Eileen Agar.

I hadn’t known Agar’s work before a small show a few weeks ago and was intrigued to see more. I hadn’t realised she was another product of the Slade in the 1920s but in 1925 she turned to surrealism and destroyed all her work to that date.

I’m not always a fan of surrealism but these works had a real sense of fun and joy about them. It was nice to have at least one of the works she showed at the International Surrealism Exhibition in London in the show. I loved the picture of Picasso she painted called “The Muse of Construction” based on a photograph of him on a beach.

It was interesting to see a gallery devoted to her photography, in which she recorded the shapes in the natural world and small assemblage sculptures made from found objects. I was intrigued to see that she was a friend of Lee Miller.

Her war years were interesting, staying in London, being a fire watcher and volunteering at a canteen, all while housing friends fleeing Europe or made homeless by the Blitz. It gave me a real sense of a kind person and friendship.

I loved the later acrylic works in bright colours, some of them like that shown going back to her earlier photography. She continued to learn and experiment to the end of her life.

I was very struck by one sentence in the handout on the time following the war years which had a certain resonance to this post Covid period.

“When the war ended Agar ‘felt like something new and marvellous ought to happen’ but she was ‘exhausted and humdrum, more dispirited than usual’. … Yearning for change but with travel outside the country difficult.” How true!

Closes 29 August 2021

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