Emmy Bridgwater (1902 – 1999)
Emmy Bridgwater (1902 – 1999)
Necessary Bandages, c. 1942
Oil on panel
35 x 29.2 cm (framed 51.5 x 48 x 6.8 cm)
Emmy Bridgwater was born in Birmingham and studied at Birmingham School of Arts and Crafts. In 1936, she visited the International Surrealist Exhibition in London, which she regarded as a “transformation” for her and substantially altered her approach to her work. In the late 1930’s she joined the ‘Birmingham Group of 7’ artists whose members included Surrealists Conroy Maddox and John Melville. They went on together to join the London Surrealist Group in 1940 and Bridgwater’s first solo exhibition was held at Jack Bilbo’s Modern Gallery in London in 1942.
Bridgwater contributed writing to several International Surrealist publications including “Arson”, edited by Toni del Renzio; and “Le Savoir Vivre” in Brussels. In 1946 she contributed an illustrated poem ‘The Birds’ to Free Union. She exhibited at the International Surrealist Exhibition in 1947 at Galerie Maeght, Paris, travelling there in person to be the signatory for the English group’s ‘Declaration’.
She used ‘Automatism’, a Surrealist technique of reducing conscious control when making art to expose hidden and unconscious aspects of one’s personality.’ Andre Breton, said about Emmy’s drawings in 1940s: “Bridgwater brought a new purity of outlook to British Surrealism, returning to the early days or the movement, to it’s “automatic” beginnings in France. The swirling lines, plant forms and vaguely suggestive forms seem to have been exorcised from the deep recesses of the mind.”
Provenance:
Purchased from the artist by Blond Fine Art, London,
Purchased by Peter Nahum, London 1989
Purchased Christie’s, London 15 November 2006 by Jeffrey Sherwin, Lot 90.
Exhibited:
London, Blond Fine Art, British Women Surrealists: Eileen Agar, Emmy Bridgwater, Ithell Colquhoun, Grace Pailthorpe, Edith Rimmington: an exhibition arranged in conjunction with the publication of Thames and Hudson of ‘Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement’ by Whitney Chadwick, October – November 1985
London, Blond Fine Art, British Surrealism, June 1989, no. 8.
Aldeburgh, Peter Pears Gallery, Festival Exhibition, June 2006, no. 36.
Middlesbrough, MIMA, British Surrealism & Other Realities: The Sherwin Collection, 23 May – 17 August 2008
Leeds, Leeds Art Gallery, British Surrealism in Context: A Collector’s Eye, 10th July – 1st November 2009
London, Dulwich Picture Gallery, British Surrealism 1783 – 1952, 26 February – 17 May 2020
Wakefield, The Hepworth Wakefield, When Dreams Confront Reality, March 2021 – 7 January 2022
