Fonds 94 - Ithell Colquhoun fonds

Ithell Colquhoun (1906-1988) was a British Surrealist painter, occultist, poet and author. She was born in Shillong, British India, and was raised in England. She spent her early years travelling before settling briefly in Paris, where her career as an artist was established. She returned to London in the 1930s, continuing to paint and exhibit her work while pursuing her writing career and study of the occult. In 1958, she moved to the village of Paul in Cornwall, where she remained until her death in 1988.

Colquhoun attended the Slade School of Art in London from 1927-1931, where she received the Slade’s Summer Composition prize for her painting Judith Showing the Head of Holofernes. After graduating in 1931, she moved to and established a studio in Paris, where she was introduced to the Surrealist movement by René Magritte, André Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dalí and Man Ray. During this period, her work was exhibited at the New English Art Club, the Royal Academy and the Royal Society of Scotland, and in galleries throughout Paris. In 1936, she held two solo exhibitions at the Cheltenham Art Gallery and the Fine Art Society, London. In 1939, she joined the British Surrealist Group under the direction of E.L.T. Mesens and exhibited at the Mayor Gallery in London. She was expelled from the Surrealist Group in 1940 after refusing to comply with Mesens’ demand that she renounce her association with occult groups, although she continued to apply surrealist principles to her work.

Colquhoun became interested in occultism at the age of 17 after reading about Aleister Crowley’s Abbey of Thelema. While studying at the Slade School of Art, she joined the Quest Society, which was dedicated to the study of religion, philosophy and science. She immersed herself in a wide range of esoteric traditions, including alchemy, magic, Rosicrucianism, Kabbalah, Gnosticism, Tarot, Astrology, Theosophy, Christian mysticism, and Celtic lore. Colquhoun was a member of many esoteric societies throughout her life, including the Ordo Templi Orientis, the New Isis Lodge, the French Gnostic Church, the Druid Order, the Ancient Celtic Church, and various Masonic lodges. In 1977, she was ordained as Priestess of Isis by the Fellowship of Isis.

Colquhoun was a prolific writer who produced several essays, novels, travel guides and poems. She wrote the travel books The Crying of the Wind: Ireland (1955) and The Living Stones: Cornwall (1957), the novel Goose of Hermogenes (1961), and the poetry collections Grimoire of the Entangled Thicket (1973) and Osmazone (1983). Her novels I Saw Water and Destination Limbo were published posthumously in 2014 and 2021, respectively. Her articles and short fiction have been published in the London Bulletin, New Road: New Directions in Art and Writing, and The Fortune Anthology.