LEAVE UNCOMBED YOUR DARLING HAIR, 1953
Ink drawing. 17¼ x 12in. (44.4 x 31.2cm.)
Inscribed on the reverse of the frame the name of the artist, the title, c.1953 and with the Paul label
Provenance
National Trust bequest.
Exhibited
Penzance, Newlyn Orion Gallery, 1976, No. 44. Illustrated in b/w on the catalogue cover and as a flyer for the exhibition. The flyer is reproduced in Hardie, p. 151.
London, New Art Centre, 1977, No. 12. Illustrated in b/w in the catalogue.
Literature
Ratcliffe (2007) illus. b/w, pl. 67.
The technique is superautomatism.
Head hair is a part of the body that lends itself to manipulation and adornment. Individuality and status within a social system can easily be expressed through hair style. This is one important reason why many societies have standards and prohibitions about how hair is displayed and dressed and why there is so much symbolism about hair in folklore and religion.
Head hair is often equated with life-force; solar gods, for example, are usually portrayed with long flowing hair. Hair that is exposed or unbound symbolises freedom, health, strength power and sexual potency. The highly tactile activity of grooming another’s hair indicates intimacy. Hair that is worn short, concealed or tightly braided indicates obedience, orderliness, containment and loss of power.
In Max Ernst’s collage novel, Réve d’une Petite Fille Qui Vulut Entre au Carmel (1930), as the heroine’s Catholic innocence turns into sexual awareness, her hair grows unchecked, takes on its own personality and eventually sails away.
In many societies social transitions are indicated by changes in hair style. So, for example, the transition from child to adult is accompanied by rules about the way in which hair may be worn or displayed. Whereas young girls are frequently allowed to wear their hair long, visible and unbound, married women may have to keep their hair tightly braided and covered. The cutting of hair is a sign of mourning and death. It denotes a passage to the underworld. Hair that is shorn, however, will re-grow, suggesting rebirth.
Hair, in particular hair length, is also associated with gender identification. The traditional view was succinctly summarised by Field-Marshal Lord Wolseley when he said: ‘hair is the glory of a woman but the shame of a man.’
In her poem 'Living Boy', published in Osmazone, Colquhoun associates long hair in the male subject of the poem with freedom and independence:
Padrig Padrig don’t cut your hair
Let it touch earth let it breathe air
Never mind mockery threats or please
Let it grow long like lichen on trees
Long Long Long
The title ‘leave uncombed your darling hair’ appears as a phrase in Colquhoun’s unpublished novel Destination Limbo. It is the first line of a serenade and appears on p.56. of the typescript, at TGA 929/2/1/20/4.
References
Colquhoun, I. Osmazone. Dunganon, Örkeljunga, Sweden, 1983.
Hardie, M. (ed). 100 Years in Newlyn: Diary of a Gallery. Patten Press, Penzance, 1995.
Ratcliffe, E. Ithell Colquhoun. Mandrake, Oxford. 2007.