The Dance of Moon and Sun: Ithell Colquhoun, British Women and Surrealism

Essays on the art and writings of the long-neglected British occultist and Surrealist

Straddling the worlds of Surrealism, occultism and modernist literature, Ithell Colquhoun (1906-88) was widely respected in her lifetime, but her transgressive, esoteric and poetic paintings and writings were long neglected until Richard Shillitoe’s 2009 book Ithell Colquhoun: Magician Born of Nature initiated her revaluation–followed by Fulgur’s 2016 publication Decad of Intelligence, the Tate’s 2019 acquisition of more than 5,000 Colquhoun works and Amy Hale’s 2020 biography. Colquhoun occupies a unique place within the lineage of occult Surrealist painters such as Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo, as her presence in the 2022 Venice Biennale exhibition Milk of Dreams demonstrated.
This volume is the first critical examination of her diverse legacy, compiling papers from a 2018 conference on Colquhoun and her contemporaries Leonora Carrington, Leonor Fini and Stella Snead. Contributors explore themes of authorship and agency, Colquhoun’s drawing practice, her Celtic motifs, British Surrealism and alchemy.