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.”
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.
References
Chadwick, W. Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement, Thames and Hudson, London 1985.
Ratcliffe, E. Ithell Colquhoun, Mandrake, Oxford. 2007.
Remy, M. Surrealism in Britain, Ashgate, Aldershot, 1999.