Henry Moore Institute in Leeds will host The Traumatic Surreal, an exploration of Surrealist sculpture by post-war women artists from Europe, while The Hepworth Wakefield will stage Forbidden Territories: 100 Years of Surreal Landscapes, a journey through the fantastical terrains of Surrealism. The two exhibitions have been programmed to mark 100 years since the launch of the artistic movement with the publication of André Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism in 1924.

The Traumatic Surreal at the Henry Moore Institute is the first exhibition to explore the radical use and development of Surrealist sculptural traditions by post-war women artists from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Luxembourg. Bringing together work from the 1960s through to the present day, it will feature artists Renate Bertlmann, Birgit Jürgenssen, Bady Minck, Meret

Oppenheim, Pipilotti Rist, Ursula (Schultze-Bluhm) and Eva Wipf. The Traumatic Surreal showcases how women artists across several generations turned to sculpture to address and critique post-war legacies of war, patriarchy and fascism. Using unconventional materials to create layers of meaning that evoke the repressed and the unconscious, and embracing the capacity to shock or challenge, these artists show the continuing relevance of Surrealism’s disruptive legacy.

The Traumatic Surreal is co-curated with Patricia Allmer, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History at the University of Edinburgh and is based on her book of the same name. The exhibition includes a number of sculptures, such as those by Eva Wipf and Ursula, which have never been shown in the UK.

At The Hepworth Wakefield, Forbidden Territories will bring together over 100 Surrealist works, featuring a wide array of British and international artists working across different media, from Breton’s circle in the 1920s, through to Surrealism’s ongoing resonances in contemporary art.

Artists on display will include Salvador Dalí, Eileen Agar, Lee Miller and Max Ernst, alongside later Surrealists such as Leonora Carrington, Edith Rimmington, Marion Adnams, Conroy Maddox, Desmond Morris, and contemporary artists working within the legacy of Surrealism such as Shuvinai Ashoona, Stefanie Heinze, Helen Marten, Nicolas Party and Wael Shawky. Presented in transhistorical groupings, Forbidden Territories will explore how Surreal ideas can turn landscape into a metaphor for the unconscious, fuse the bodily with the botanical, and provide means to express political anxieties, gender constraints and freedoms.

Forbidden Territories will feature a solo presentation of works by Mary Wykeham, a now underrecognised Surrealist artist who decided to become a nun in 1950, at the height of her career. The display will include her paintings, drawings, etchings on paper and copper printing plates, and will be the largest public showing of Wykeham’s work since her solo show of 1949 at Galerie des Deux Îles, Paris.

Accompanying the exhibition is a new illustrated book, Forbidden Territories, edited by Eleanor Clayton, Head of Collection and Exhibitions at The Hepworth Wakefield, and published by Thames & Hudson.

Dr Clare O’Dowd, Henry Moore Institute Research Curator and co-curator of The Traumatic Surreal, says: “A century after the Manifesto of Surrealism was published in 1924, the movement’s impact in German-speaking countries has not been fully explored. We’re delighted to collaborate with Professor Patricia Allmer to bring these artists together for the first time. In a period when women’s rights are under threat across the world, and politics in many places is lurching to the right, exploring these powerful critiques of fascism and patriarchy is particularly timely.”

Eleanor Clayton, Head of Collection and Exhibitions at The Hepworth Wakefield, says: “This unique survey will take visitors on a fantastical journey through an array of Surrealist landscapes, some well-known and some rarely seen. Bringing exceptional modern art in dialogue with the best of contemporary practice is at the heart of our programme at The Hepworth Wakefield. We are delighted to be showing long-established masterpieces in Wakefield for the first time, alongside newly commissioned artwork, showing that the influence of Surrealism – one of the most dynamic and wide-reaching art movements of the twentieth century – is still alive to this day.”