- Ithell Colquhoun
Ithell Colquhoun (1906 — 1988) was a British
Surrealist painter and author. She was born inShillong ,Assam ,India . From the 1930s to her death, her work was exhibited widely in Britain andGermany .She studied at the
Slade School of Art inLondon , and later travelled toFrance to study the Surrealist masters, especiallySalvador Dalí . However she was actually expelled from the London Surrealist Group for not giving her unconditional support toE.L.T. Mesens in 1940.She married
Toni del Renzio in 1943 and was divorced by 1948.Best known for her paintings, Colquhoun invented new
Surrealist techniques , including graphomania, stillomania, and parsemage. She was also an author, playwright, and poet.Throughout her life she was deeply interested in the
occult , especially the Kabbalistictree of life . Her early membership to the Golden Dawn was rejected, but she later became a member of the similarO.T.O. Bibliography includes The Sword of Wisdom, New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1975, which was the first book-length biography of
Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers . It remains the longest single work specifically focused on Mathers. She also published an occult novel, The Goose of Hermogenes. A recent book of her Collected Magical Writings has been published posthumously.Colquhoun died on
April 11 ,1988 inCornwall , where she had lived most of her life.External links
* [http://www.tate.org.uk/research/researchservices/archive/ Ithell Colquhoun at the Tate Gallery Archive]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
