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Ithell Colquhoun (British, 1906-1988) Dryad: Vine 23 x 25 cm. (9 x 9 3/4 in.) image 1

Ithell Colquhoun (British, 1906-1988) Dryad: Vine 23 x 25 cm. (9 x 9 3/4 in.) image 2

Lot 9^AR

Ithell Colquhoun
(British, 1906-1988)
Dryad: Vine 23 x 25 cm. (9 x 9 3/4 in.)

Amended

Blazing a Trail: Modern British Women

20 September 2023, 15:00 BST

London, New Bond Street

Sold for £4,864 inc. premium

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Ithell Colquhoun (British, 1906-1988)

Dryad: Vine
signed with monogram and dated '71' (lower right); titled and dated again 'DRYAD: VINE. 1971.' (on the backboard)
watercolour and ball-point pen
23 x 25 cm. (9 x 9 3/4 in.)

Footnotes

Provenance
John Balance, by whom gifted to the present owner
Private Collection, U.K.

Exhibited
Penzance, Newlyn Art Gallery, Ithell Colquhoun: Montages, Gouaches, Collages, 12–24 July 1971, cat.no.16
London, College of Psychic Studies, Art and Spirit: Visions of Wonder: Summer Exhibition, 11–20 August 2019 (un-numbered exhibition)

Literature
Amy Hale, Genius of the Fern Loved Gully: The Supernatural Life of Ithell Colquhoun, Artist and Occultist, Strange Attractor Press, London, 2020, p.280 (col.ill.)

Referring to her Dryad series, Colquhoun wrote:

'In 1971 I made a number of drawings based on the automatic process known as decalcomania which evoke the spirit of various trees: Beech, Rowan, Ash, Willow, Oak, Vine and Silver Fir.....these I offer to the White Goddess at a time when wasteful technology is threatening the plant life (and with it all the organic life) of earth and the waters.' (Introduction to Grimoire of the Entangled Thicket, Ore Publications, Stevenage, 1973).

All the works in the series are painted using the variety of decalcomania known as stillomancy, first used in a surrealist context by the Romanian artist, Dolfi Trost, but more familiar from the Rorschach ink blot test. It consists of folding a piece of paper over a splash of ink to produce forms that are more or less symmetrical and which can then be developed or interpreted.

Dryad: Vine, with its mixture of arboreal, mammalian and avian associations, breaks down the conventional, scientific, boundaries of nature and emphasises Her essential unity as a living force.

We are grateful to Dr Richard Shillitoe for compiling this catalogue entry.

Saleroom notices

Please note that the medium should be watercolour and ball-point pen, on two sheets laid to a third sheet by the artist. The dimensions for this work are 20 x 22 cm. (7 7/8 x 8 5/8 in.) (image), 23 x 25 cm. (9 x 9 3/4 in.) (sheet).

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