Ithell Colquhoun

Into the world of 1950s Ireland—a lushly green, windswept landscape studded with holy wells and the decaying country houses of a vanished ruling class—arrives Ithell Colquhoun. An occultist and a surrealist painter, Colquhoun's travels around the island are guided by her artist's eye and her feeling for the world beyond our own, as well as her spikily humorous view of...

An extraordinary book... Part Gothic fantasy, part emblematic progress through a dream world... It has a gripping hallucinogenic clarity - Snoo Wilson A trancelike feminist fable by Britain's foremost surrealist painter Calcination. Putrefaction. Exaltation. Trapped on an enchanted island ruled by her uncle, a young woman must pass through the stages of alchemical transformation to escape. He wants to conquer...

‘Colquhoun's unique artistic vision shines through like at no time in recent history’ - Art UK ‘Colquhoun's time-travelling survey of Cornwall's culture and history brings ghosts and dead landscapes to life all around you’ - Stewart Lee Painter Ithell Colquhoun arrives in Cornwall in the late 1940s, searching for a studio and a refuge from bombed-out London. So begins a...