GUARDIAN ANGEL, 1946
Tempera. 12½ x 14½in. (32 x 36.5cm.)
Provenance
Peter Nahum at the Leicester Galleries.
Exhibited
London, Mayor Gallery, 1947, (paintings), No. 19, as 1947, illustrated in the catalogue.
Paris, Galerie 1900-2000, 1982, No. 45, Illustrated in b/w in the catalogue.
In his analysis of this painting, Remy (1999) emphasises the image as gateway or entrance. As we might expect, the nature of the entrance and what might lie beyond, are shrouded in mystery and ambiguity:“what the angel reveals [is] either the entrance to a grotto, the gateway into another world, a huge mouth with an enormous uvula,, or two rounded transparent buttocks – or it could be the opening of a woman’s genitals.”
Ferentinou (2007) writes that ‘an abstract angelic figure with wide open golden wings, which touch the ground and resemble branches bearing luxuriant foliage, protectively embraces what may be seen as the natural world, which is then contained within the two wings/branches and the torso that sprouts from the ground like a tree-trunk; the anthropomorphic figure frames Colquhoun’s landscape, implying that this is the force protecting nature, like guardian angels, that in turn recalls the role of the mother-goddess as protectress of life.’ She concludes that the painting reveals’ vision of animistic nature, the unseen animating principle that bears and protects life, that equals the Great Goddess in ancient myth and Nature in the hermetic tradition.’
Literature
Referred to by Chadwick, p. 154.
Illustrated in colour by Remy (1999) pl.162, discussed p. 313.
Ratcliffe (2007) illus. b/w, pl.39.
Ferentinou (2007) p. 247.
References
Chadwick, W. Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement, Thames and Hudson, London 1985.
Ferentinou, V. Women Surrealists and Hermetic Imagery. PhD thesis. University of Essex. 2007
Ratcliffe, E. Ithell Colquhoun, Mandrake, Oxford. 2007.
Remy, M. Surrealism in Britain, Ashgate, Aldershot, 1999.