HEART, 1938
Carved chalk object, decorated with tempera.
Provenance
Untraced.
Exhibited
London, Mayor Gallery 1939, No. 16.
Literature
Illustrated in b/w in The London Bulletin, 1939, No. 8-9, p10.
Described by Ades, p.40. as: "dripping lips moulded on a heart shaped object".
Ratcliffe (2007) illus. b/w, pl. 23.
At a time when other surrealists, such as Yves Tanguy (From the Other Side of the Bridge 1936) and Meret Oppenheim (Fur Tea Cup 1938) were producing soft sculptures with highly tactile qualities, Colquhoun here transforms the soft, tactile and sensitive into the hard and unyielding. The heart that is still, lips that are unyielding and tears that are solid, are objects that exist in ways that are contrary to their nature. Heart is also a comment on the cruel side of love that leads to vulnerability and pain. It is a heart, literally, of stone.
Heart is carved from chalk, a sedimentary rock formed from the shells of ancient marine organisms. Poetically, the material unites the hardness of stone with the softness of water, the element in which it was formed. Now inanimate, but composed of one-living creatures, it bears witness to an alchemical transformation that demonstrates the animistic belief that the spirit of life exists in all matter.
Reference
Ades, D. Notes on Two Women Surrealist Painters: Eileen Agar and Ithell Colquhoun. Oxford Art Journal, 3(1) (April 1980): 36-42.
Reference
Ratcliffe, E. Ithell Colquhoun. Mandrake, Oxford. 2007.