Cathy's Art Diary

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 ...

Interesting exhibition at the Redfern Gallery of works on paper by Surrealist Eileen Agar alongside five contemporary artists invited by the gallery to respond to Agar’s work. I must admit I’ve not been to the current exhibition of Agar’s work at the Whitechapel Gallery so am not that aware of her work. The works here, like the one shown, were mainly colleges often overlaying a cut out frame over another work. The five artists chosen to respond to her work were all women, LINDER, Lucy Stein, Florence Hutchings, Nadia Hebson and Oliva Fraser. I had only come across the latter before. I liked LINDER’s photo montage work combining female figures and objects particularly a work called “THE Sphinx” which superimposed a couple of classical heads over each other. I also like Florence Hutchings paintings of everyday settings. Closed 17 July 2021