How far the inspiration for the works of the 1940s lay in the natural evolution of her spirituality, or how far they were a response to events in her personal life is not known. It is tempting to link some of this interest in gender to Colquhoun’s relationship with Toni del Renzio: this is hampered by the almost complete absence of any hard evidence concerning their relationship, other than some basic facts and dates.
The basic facts are these. Del Renzio arrived in England sometime in 1938 but probably did not meet Colquhoun until 1941-2. Colquhoun provided some financial backing for the publication of his single-issue review Arson in March 1942. By July of that year he had moved into her studio in Fairfax Road, London. She settled with his creditors in March 1943 when Arson was a commercial failure. (1) They married on 10 July 1943, separated in the winter of 1946 and divorced in 1947.
There is no evidence of the sort of creative partnership between them as with the surrealist couples described by Hubert; (2) just a poem by del Renzio dedicated to “My Darling Ithell”, the manuscript of a poem by him illustrated with automatic vignettes by Colquhoun and a small number of jointly written surrealist poems. These include a serial poem written on their wedding day in which the other participants included their witnesses, Olive Bellamy and Conroy Maddox, and friends Robert and Lilian Melville. (3) These poems all have a strong sexual element; in del Renzio’s case his contributions are better described as carnal rather than erotic. The texts that each published in New Road 1943, however, do indicate that sexuality at a theoretical levelmust have been a subject of discussion and debate between them – as, indeed, it was for many surrealists.
The ideal Christian marriage is monogamous. Although there is uncertainly surrounding the identity of the works, Colquhoun used ‘Monogamy’ as the title for two works in the Diagrams of Love series. Intriguingly, in a list of paintings (not in Colquhoun’s hand) in the Tate archive, one of the ‘Monogamy’ works has ‘del Renzio’ written against it, and the other has ‘divorce’.
For his part, del Renzio wrote about sexuality and monogamy in a rather confusing text published in the Surrealist section of New Road 1943. (4) In it, he referred to “the sexual element in the unconscious reality of the Surrealist Group.” He proclaimed that the surrealist voice reveals “metamorphosis, initiation, monogamy, freedom.” He went on to evoke the names of Breton and Engels as authorities for his claim that the most revolutionary sexual attitude is “the monogamic [sic] tendency” before concluding that “The New Myth, monogamy, both intimately related to liberty, these are the rewards of Surrealist lucidity, furnished us by revelation, initiation.” For Colquhoun, the New Myth was “the myth of the Siamese Twins”, the 'hermaphrodite whole'. (4)
Taking the two texts together, one may tentatively conclude that del Renzio used ‘monogamy’ in the same way that Colquhoun used ‘hermaphrodite whole’, to indicate that the true revelation, the true liberty is the move beyond gender opposites and the attainment of the timeless and united state of the androgyne. They may have been thinking of each other and they may have been thinking of the whole of human kind. Alas, in their personal lives the conjunction of opposites proved to be temporary; monogamy was not maintained and the marriage ended in divorce in 1947. (5)
Notes
1. Legal papers relating to the bankruptcy action are at the National
Archives Ref 89/1384. 1000 copies had been printed, at a cost of £105,
but only £35 was recovered from sales.
2. Hubert, R.R. 1994. Magnifying Mirrors: Women, Surrealism, &
Partnership Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press.
3. There is a story, repeated by Remy, 1999, Surrealism in Britain,
Aldershot: Ashgate, p. 353 that Maddox, to counter del Renzio’s
impressive list of Russian names, signed the register ‘Conroy Griffin Booth
Maddox’, imperilling the legality of the register in the process. The
Register of the marriage shows that this is not the case. However,
Maddox signed his lines in the serial poem ‘Conroy Griffon-Boost-Maddox’,
showing that there is some truth in the rumour, but it was hardly a
revolutionary act.
4. Del Renzio, T. 1943. The Light that will not cease to Fail. In New Road.
(eds A Comfort and J Bayliss). Billericay, Essex. 180-183.
3. Colquhoun, I. 1943. The Water-stone of the Wise. In New Road. (eds
A Comfort and J Bayliss). Billericay, Essex: Gray Walls Press, 196-9.
4. Del Renzio appears to have retained a power over her for the rest of her
life. A visitor to her studio in the 1970s recounts how, at the mention of
his name, Colquhoun was quite overcome and needed time to recover.
In one of the few appearances of del Renzio in the Colquhoun archive,
she described him as homosexual and a liar (see TGA 929/8/15/4).
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