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Agar was born in Buenos Aires and her father was Scottish
and her mother was American,
so she already has a sort of very cosmopolitan upbringing,
she studied at the Slade School of Art in London
and then in Paris in the 1920’s
and was an important part of the British Surrealist movement
as were a number of other women artists.
Surrealism I think is a very interesting movement
from that point of view as there a are number of
really dominant female figures.
British Surrealists came a bit late in the day, I suppose,
in comparison to their continental neighbours
and the International Surrealist Exhibition at the New Burlington Galleries
in London in 1936 was a really important event
in the history of Surrealism in this country.
And Eileen Agar was included in that show.
This work is ‘Fish Circus’ by Eileen Agar
which was made in 1939.
It’s a collage with added elements of watercolour
and pen and ink
and it was completed by Eileen Agar when she was on holiday
on the Mediterranean coast.
It consists of the central figure of a starfish,
which was actually taken from the sea,
which has been pinned into the centre of the composition
and it forms the basis for the entire composition
which also consists of fish
and several geometric elements which are,
I think are actually found pieces of paper
which she’s added into the collage.
I think part of the appeal of this work is the element of playfulness
that often shines through in Agar’s collages
and also in her paintings and drawings.
I particularly appreciate the incorporation of found objects
because usually Surrealist artists often incorporated found objects
but they tended to be items found in flea markets and shops
rather than actually taken from nature.
She was interested in combining both
geometric shapes and organic elements.
I think that’s very clear in this picture,
she was interested in combining abstraction with Surrealism.
So the formal geometric properties
with the more automatic organic elements
and that’s something which I think is quite different
to what a lot of the other Surrealist artists were doing.
They wouldn’t have necessarily combined abstraction
with a surrealist aesthetic,
but she didn’t see that as a difficult thing.
She thought that was interesting that you could combine
both things.