GRACE PAILTHORPE

(1883-1971)

Untitled

Footnotes

Provenance
Private collection, UK.

Exhibited
Bexhill-on-Sea, De La Warr Pavilion, A Tale Of Mother's Bones: Grace Pailthorpe, Reuben Mednikoff and the Birth of Psychorealism, 6 September 2018 - 20 January 2019 (later travelled to London).

Dr Grace Pailthorpe (1883-1971) first served as a surgeon in the First World War and later studied psychoanalysis. In 1935, she wanted someone to help her 'prize open' the mind of one of her patients and after meeting the artist Reuben Mednikoff (1906-1972) at a party, she was persuaded that he had the required nature to do so. Together, they spent decades of their lives collaborating and researching how the arts could free individuals and societies from the constraints that ailed them, developing a creative process that combined Surrealism with psychoanalysis. In the process, Grace became an artist too, bringing artistic and scientific thinking together. 'Psychorealism' was the term that Pailthorpe and Mednikoff invented to describe their work.

In June 1936, paintings by the two artists were included in the International Surrealist Exhibition in London. Pailthorpe's work was hailed as 'the best and most truly Surrealist' by the leader of the Surrealist movement, André Breton. From this date until 1940 they were key members of the British Surrealist Group.

Pailthorpe was convinced that art could provide a direct route to the unconscious, allowing the patient and the analyst to avoid the more time-consuming Freudian processes. Alongside Mednikoff, she produced a huge body of work that included startlingly vivid and wildly experimental paintings and drawings, often paired with in-depth psychoanalytic interpretation. Her intense consideration of her own earliest memories often covered the taboo aspects of birth, infancy, and motherhood. These themes can clearly be seen in her art, as in Untitled (lot X). The imagery here explores an intra-uterine regression and a concern with portraying life at its earliest stages, where the foetus is dependent on the mother for nutrients and life.

By the time that she painted Untitled, Pailthorpe and Mednikoff had been living in Berkeley, California where she was conducting research work. On leaving Britain they had initially settled in New York, moving to California in the winter of 1940. Not long before leaving the country, they had ceased their formal association with the British Surrealist group following a disagreement with E.L.T. Mesens, the de facto leader.

After the war, the pair returned to the UK. Pailthorpe worked at the Portman Clinic, running art classes for patients. Lot X depicts an image a giraffe from 1948. No doubt still full of symbolism, this painting does however show a lighter side to her work.