Performance, Design, Display: Making Occultures in Ithell Colquhoun's Archive c.1920–1960
type: CreativeWork
description: In 2019, Tate accessioned a significant body of artwork and archival materials relating to the British artist and occultist Ithell Colquhoun (1906-1988). Approximately 5,000 items, previously held by the National Trust, joined a smaller collection of archival material which Colquhoun had bequeathed to Tate at the time of her death. Known within the discipline of history of art as a key figure in British Surrealism, my thesis takes into view this vast and largely uncatalogued archive to consider the ways in which Colquhoun’s occultism intersected with her artmaking, both within Surrealism and without. Specifically, I analyse three contexts which have been under-explored in critical literature on the artist to date: performance, design, and display. Chapter one evaluates how Colquhoun negotiated her nascent interest in the occult by way of work produced for and within performance contexts between 1920 and 1933. Chapter two considers how Colquhoun’s occultism intersected with her work in design contexts between 1933 and 1946. Chapter three appraises Colquhoun’s work in the context of display histories of the mid-century, specifically between 1946 and 1960. Across these chapters, I consider how Colquhoun negotiated her occult-artmaking as informed by interwar body cultures, wartime design discourses, post-war reconstruction, and developing consumerism. Exploring the intersection of these public-facing contexts with Colquhoun’s occultism expands upon newly established understandings of alternative belief systems as existing as much in the social realm as within private spaces. Whilst I look to highlight the social and cultural conditions in Britain between 1920 and 1960 in which Colquhoun lived and worked, I argue that the archive reveals her art and occult practices to have operated transnationally. Considering Colquhoun’s work across this period further seeks to disrupt modernist critical traditions, historically contingent upon a prevailing view of modernity as progre…
abstract: In 2019, Tate accessioned a significant body of artwork and archival materials relating to the British artist and occultist Ithell Colquhoun (1906-1988). Approximately 5,000 items, previously held by the National Trust, joined a smaller collection of archival material which Colquhoun had bequeathed to Tate at the time of her death. Known within the discipline of history of art as a key figure in British Surrealism, my thesis takes into view this vast and largely uncatalogued archive to consider the ways in which Colquhoun’s occultism intersected with her artmaking, both within Surrealism and without. Specifically, I analyse three contexts which have been under-explored in critical literature on the artist to date: performance, design, and display. Chapter one evaluates how Colquhoun negotiated her nascent interest in the occult by way of work produced for and within performance contexts between 1920 and 1933. Chapter two considers how Colquhoun’s occultism intersected with her work in design contexts between 1933 and 1946. Chapter three appraises Colquhoun’s work in the context of display histories of the mid-century, specifically between 1946 and 1960. Across these chapters, I consider how Colquhoun negotiated her occult-artmaking as informed by interwar body cultures, wartime design discourses, post-war reconstruction, and developing consumerism. Exploring the intersection of these public-facing contexts with Colquhoun’s occultism expands upon newly established understandings of alternative belief systems as existing as much in the social realm as within private spaces. Whilst I look to highlight the social and cultural conditions in Britain between 1920 and 1960 in which Colquhoun lived and worked, I argue that the archive reveals her art and occult practices to have operated transnationally. Considering Colquhoun’s work across this period further seeks to disrupt modernist critical traditions, historically contingent upon a prevailing view of modernity as progre…
author: Sharples, Emma
language: eng
keywords: Archives, British Art, Occulture, Surrealism, Visual Culture
license: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/3c454d07-45f3-43bf-80a5-3083ac5a3dac/download
license: http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved
date published: 2024-12-31
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:17Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.122613