British Surrealism

- Features work by: Eileen Agar, Edward Burra, Cecil Collins, Paul Nash, Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland, Francis Bacon, Leonora Carrington, Lucian Freud and Paule Vézelay - Delving back to the artists and writers who were the ’Ancestors of Surrealism’, the influence of Lewis Carroll, William Blake, Henry Fuseli and William Shakespeare is explored - Essays by David Boyd Haycock, Kirstie Meehan and Sacha Llewellyn - Produced in conjunction with Dulwich Picture Gallery’s British Surrealism exhibition in 2020 Surrealism was one of the most influential avant-garde movements of the 20th century. ’Discovered’ in 1920 by the French poet André Breton, it emerged from the horrifying irrationality of the First World War, the revolutionary nonsense of Dadaist art and the penetrating theories of Freudian psychoanalysis. It explored the illogical, the dreamlike, the marvelous; it intended to liberate the imagination, free the mind and change the world. With its unique history of outlandish creativity and its soft spot for the absurd, Britain was a perfect breeding ground for the surreal. Produced in conjunction with Dulwich Picture Gallery’s British Surrealism exhibition in 2020, this publication features works by Eileen Agar, Edward Burra, Cecil Collins, Paul Nash, Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland, Francis Bacon, Leonora Carrington, Lucian Freud and Paule Vézelay. Delving back to the artists and writers who were the ’Ancestors of Surrealism’, the influence of Lewis Carroll, William Blake, Henry Fuseli and William Shakespeare is explored. This beautifully produced publication will surprise the reader with it’s unique, imaginative take on what an exhibition catalog can be, including interactive pages interspersed amongst essays by David Boyd Haycock, Kirstie Meehan and Sacha Llewellyn.

David Boyd Haycock is a freelance art historian, curator and lecturer, specializing in 20th-century British art and culture. Kirstie Meehan is Archivist (Modern & Contemporary Art) at the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh. Sacha Llewellyn in an independent writer and exhibition curator, a co-founder of Liss Llewellyn.