Eileen Agar

Eileen Agar (1899-1991)

Often pigeon-holed as a surrealist, Eileen Agar (1899-1991) was in fact a highly original and independent imaginitive artist.
An English painter of Argentine birth, she arrived in England in 1906 and in 1924 she studied with Leon Underwood (1890–1975), later attending the Slade School of Fine Art, London, from 1925 to 1926.

Agar became a member of the London group from 1933, and her work was selected by Roland Penrose and Herbert Read for the International Surrealist Exhibition at the New Burlington Galleries, London, in 1936 and subsequently exhibited with the Surrealists both in England and abroad. It was from this point in her career that she experimented with automatic techniques and new materials, taking photographs and making collages and objects which she became so well known for.