DERVISH, 1952
Indian ink. 17 x 12¼in. (44 x 31.25cm.) Inscribed on the reverse on the frame with the title, c.1952 and with the Paul label.
Provenance
National Trust Bequest.
Exhibited
London, Chenil Galleries, 1956, No. 272.
Newlyn, Newlyn Gallery, c. 1973.
London, Parkin Gallery, 1977, No. 42 (listed in the catalogue but stated ‘not on show’).
Literature
Illustrated in b/w by Remy (1999) pl.162.
Ratcliffe (2007) illus. b/w, pl. 31.
The Dervishes are Sufi Muslims. Their dance, in which skirts are whirled endlessly, is, in fact, a religious ceremony.
The swirling swerving lines of the drawing are not only appropriate to the image of a dervish, but are also reminiscent of the curving lines of force found in paintings of the 1940s.
For another example of this style of graphic automatism, see Leave Uncombed your Darling Hair, (1953).
References
Remy, M. Surrealism in Britain, Ashgate, Aldershot, 1999.
Ratcliffe, E. Ithell Colquhoun. Mandrake, Oxford. 2007.