A Footnote to Female Surrealists: Eileen Agar

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Eileen Agar (b. 1st December 1899 – d. 17th November 1991)

Left-to-Right: her art-object, ‘Angel of Anarchy’, (created 1936-40) which inspired the title of the 2009 definitive retrospective ‘Angels of Anarchy: Women and Surrealism’; ‘The Autobiography of an Embryo’ (1933-4) –  She spoke of it in the context of her own childlessness, which she said was a deliberate choice. “I was more interested in becoming a painter than in being a mother”;  a Self-Portrait from 1927, the year before she moved to Paris to study Art, met  Andre Breton and Paul Eluard, and joined the Surrealists.

“Nearly 23 years ago now, owing to my friendship with Geff Rushton (better known as ‘John Balance’) of Coil, I was invited to collaborate on material for what was intended to become a ‘Coil Book’: a kind of anthology of collected lyrics and manifestoes (back in those heady days, any of us remotely connected to the “Post-Industrial scene” who wanted to be taken seriously wrote ‘manifestoes’ not press releases!) – but also articles relating to the various obsessions and interests of Coil and their close friends & associates…

I remember accompanying Geff to visit and interview a charming old lady called Eileen Agar, who had been one of the few English artists to actually belong to the Surrealist group in Paris; when Salvador Dali died the BBC wheeled her out to explain who Dali was and why Surrealism was important, and she had just written a memoir called ‘A Look At My Life’. [ The photo below is from the cover of her book, which came out in 1988, and is pretty much how she looked when we went to see her. ] We spent a delightful afternoon with her, drinking tea and looking at old photos and paintings, while Geff tried to explain Acid House and Ecstasy to her (his current new enthusiasms at that time), and find out gossip about an alleged menage she had lived in with Max Ernst, Paul Eluard, and photographer Lee Miller… (I think!?!)

I remember she began by telling us that as a little girl she had travelled from Argentina to Britain accompanied by a cow and an orchestra, because her rich and fashionable mother believed that fresh milk and good music were essential to her well-being… “

“I’ve enjoyed life, and it shows through” Agar said. “Like a transparent skirt, or something like that.”

It could almost be a caption to this famous photo of her dancing on a roof-top in a see-through dress, taken in 1937 when she and the Hungarian writer Joseph Bard (whom she would later marry), were on holiday with Paul & Nusch Eluard and Roland Penrose & Lee Miller at the Mougins home of Picasso & Dora Maar.

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