Eileen Agar (1899-1991)
Angel of Mercy, 1934
Plaster with collage and watercolour
Signed and dated inside: 1934, 44.5 cm high.
Argentinian-born Eileen Agar had studied in London under sculptor Leon Underwood in 1924 before attending the Slade School of Fine Art in London from 1925-26. In 1928 she moved to Paris to study under Czech painter František Foltýn. There, she recalled seeing a painting by Max Ernst in a gallery window, and remembered, ‘It was in a party in another gallery at around the same time that I met André Breton, who introduced me to Paul Éluard’.1
In 1936 Agar was selected by Henry Moore, Roland Penrose and critic Herbert Read to be included in the first International Surrealist Exhibition, held in London. The following year, she was invited by Penrose to join him at his brother’s house in Cornwall was what he called, ‘a sudden surrealist invasion. Paul Éluard and Nusch were the first to arrive and the last to leave. Herbert Read, Eileen Agar and Joseph Bard were there with Mesens and of course Max Ernst and Leonora.’2
Joseph Bard was Agar’s husband, a classicist, collector of engraved gems, and a writer with whom she published the periodical The Island. In 1934 Agar had begun making several sculptures modelled on a bust of Bard, including this Angel of Mercy. A second bust, Angel of Anarchy, was exhibited in the exhibition Surreal Objects and Poems, held at the London Gallery in 1937. This was then sent to Amsterdam for the second International Surrealist Exhibition in 1938, and lost during the war. Agar made a second version of Angel of Anarchy which is now held in Tate’s Collection. Agar probably continued working on Angel of Mercy during this period, completing the work around 1939.
1. Eileen Agar, A Look at my Life, (London: Methuen, 1988), p. 87
2. Roland Penrose, Scrap Book 1900-1981 (London: Thames & Hudson, 1981), p.107
Provenance:
The artist
Birch & Conran, sold 1987
Purchased Christie’s, London 22 June 1993 by Jeffrey Sherwin
Exhibited:
London, Birch & Conran, Eileen Agar: A Retrospective 8 July – 7 August 1987, no. 8
London, Whitford and Hughes, The Surrealist Spirit in Britain 1988
Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, British and European Surrealism 1995
Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne Europe in the 30s 1997
Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Eileen Agar 1899 – 1991, A Centenary Exhibition, 1 December 1999- 27 February 2000, travelling to Leeds, Leeds Art Gallery, March – 30 April 2000
Wolfsburg, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Blast to Frieze: British Art in the 20th Century 2002
Middlesbrough, MIMA, British Surrealism & Other Realities: The Sherwin Collection, 23 May – 17 August 2008
Chichester, Pallant House, Eileen Agar: An Eye for Collage, 25 October 2008 – 15 March 2009
Leeds, Leeds Art Gallery, British Surrealism in Context: A Collector’s Eye, 10th July – 1st November 2009
Wakefield, The Hepworth Wakefield, Plasters: Casts and Copies, 2 May 2015 – 8 May 2016
Wakefield, The Hepworth Wakefield, Lee Miller & Surrealism in Britain, 22 June – 7 October 2018, travelling to Barcelona, Fundacio Miro, Lee Miller & Surrealism in Britain, 31 October 2018 – 20 January 2019
Frankfurt, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Fantastic Women. Surreal Worlds from Meter Oppenheim to Frida Kahlo, 13 February – 24 May 2020
London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Eileen Agar: Angel of Anarchy 19 May – 29 August 2021, travelling to Mjellby Konstmuseum, Halmstad, Sweden and Leeds Art Gallery, 29 January – 7 May 2022.
Literature:
Toni del Renzio, Arson: An Ardent Review (London: 1942), listed as The Politician
Louisa Buck, The Surrealist Sprit in Britain (London: Whitford and Hughes, 1988), no. 1
Blast to Frieze: British Art in the 20th Century, exh. cat., Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2002), plate 51
Eileen Agar: 1899-1991 A Centenary Exhibition (ed. Ann Simpson), exh. cat., Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 1999, by Ann Simpson et al., cat. no. 26
British Surrealism & Other Realities: The Sherwin Collection, 23 May – 17 August 2008, p.29
Jeffrey Sherwin, From France to England: British Surrealism Opened Up (Bradford: Northern Artists Gallery Ltd, 2014), p. 48
Eileen Agar: An Eye for Collage, exh. cat., Pallant House, no. 10
Lee Miller & Surrealism in Britain (ed. Eleanor Clayton), exh. cat. The Hepworth Wakefield (London: Lund Humphries, 2018), no. 39
Fantastic Women. Surreal Worlds from Meter Oppenheim to Frida Kahlo, (ed. Ingrid Pfeiffer), exh. cat. Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt (Munich: Hirmer Verlag GmbH, 2020), p.137
Eileen Agar: Angel of Anarchy (ed. Laura Smith), exh. cat., Whitechapel Art Gallery, 2021, fig. 55.
Image © Estate of Eileen Agar. All rights reserved 2023 / Bridgeman Images
