The Unseen & The Ghostly: Female Legacies of Spiritualism & Surrealism – Panel Talk

The Unseen & The Ghostly: Female Legacies of Spiritualism & Surrealism

Online Panel talk, Thursday 1 October 2020

Not Without My Ghosts curator Simon Grant leads an online panel discussion with art historian and expert on Surrealism, Professor Dawn Ades; exhibition artist Olivia Plender; and curator and archivist at the College of Psychic Studies, Vivienne Roberts.

The Unseen & the Ghostly: female legacies of Spiritualism & Surrealism acted as an introduction to the exhibition, whilst uncovering how female artists have been key to the development of mediumistic art practices, from the early pioneers of Spiritualist art Georgiana Houghton and Anna Mary Howitt, to the groundbreaking Surrealist works of Ithell Colquhoun and Grace Pailthorpe, as well as showing how contemporary female artists continue to engage with ideas of the supernatural, the subconscious and the otherworldly. The talk examined key works, discussing both the varied techniques employed and revealing how these were shaped by the context of the times of their making.