Richard Saltoun Gallery presents a dedicated booth to avant-garde women artists in Surrealism. These pioneering figures not only participated in the movement but reshaped its language, expanding the possibilities for transformation, resistance and invention.
The presentation is centred around an exemplary work by British artist Ithell Colquhoun (1906–1988), titled The Sunset Birth (c. 1942). Renowned for her deep engagement with the occult and distinctive contribution to Surrealism, Colquhoun reimagined automatic painting through her distinctive ‘psychomorphologies’, visualising inner psychic states with striking originality.
Alongside Colquhoun, the presentation brings together major works by Eileen Agar (1899–1991), Maria Martins (1894–1973), Suzanne Van Damme (1901–1986), Manina (1918–2010), Juliana Seraphim (1934–2005), Bona de Mandiargues (1936–2000) and Cossette Zeno (b.1930). Across their works, biomorphic forms appear fluid and unstable, charged with mythic energies that dissolve the boundaries between transcendental and physical worlds.
Mimi Parent (1924–2005) continues the exploration of transformation, employing assemblage and object-making to blur the division between self and artwork; a technique similarly used by Běla Kolařová (1923–2010) to reflect the political tensions of the Soviet occupation and Communist life.
Valentine Hugo (1887–1968), Toyen (1902–1980) and Unica Zürn (1916–1970) delve into the unstable psyche and state of imagination, rejecting fixed concepts of identity, gender and representation. Meanwhile, Stella Snead (1910–2006) and Anne Saïd (1914–1995) bring a dreamlike and uncanny sensibility to Surrealism, merging myth, nature and mysticism in their charged landscapes.
Seen together, these artists reveal Surrealism as a space of liberation and experimentation, in which women artists redefined social conventions and radically expanded the possibilities of the avant-garde.
TEFAF New York
643 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10065
OPENING DAY (by invitation)
Thursday 14 May | 1pm – 8pm
PUBLIC DAYS
Friday 15 May - Monday 18 May | 11am – 7pm
Tuesday 19 May | 11am – 6pm
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