Ithell Colquhoun: Between Worlds

Exhibition at Tate St Ives (Cornwall), 1 February - 5 May 2025

Ithell Colquhoun (1906-1988) was one of the most innovative artists of her generation. An important figure in British surrealism in the 1930s and 1940s, she was also an innovative writer and a practising occultist, inspired by the metropolises of London and Paris and the Cornish landscape. Colquhoun studied Surrealist methods of creating unconscious images and fearlessly delved into the realms of myth and magic, exploring the possibilities of a divine feminine power as a path to personal fulfilment and societal transformation.

This catalogue of the first major exhibition devoted to the work of Ithell Colquhoun features over 200 artworks and archival documents tracing the artist's development from her early work as a student and her involvement with the Surrealist movement to her fascination with the intertwined fields of art, sexual identity, ecology and the occult. It includes her interpretation of the Taro game, the most accomplished fusion of her artistic and magical practices.