The Court Gallery

Eileen Agar

(British, 1904–1991)

Eileen Agar

Spanish Shoes

Biography

Timeline
Exhibitions

Timeline

1899: Born 1st December in Buenos Aires.
1919: The Agar family moved to Balfour Place, London
1920 - 1921: Horace Kesteven, the music master at Tudor Hall, toook Agar to studio of Charles Sims RA. Summer at Cap d’Antibes. Taught watercolour by William Thornley, who also took her to see the murals by Puvis de Chavannes at the Pantheon and to Rodin’s studio at Meudon. Trip to Argentina for her 21st Birthday celebrations. Attended Leon Underwood’s Brook Green School
1921 - 1924: Attended the Slade part-time.Taught by Professor Henry Tonks. Left home for a flat in Royal Hospital Road, Chelsea and studio in Royal Avenue. Visited Paris, Madrid, Toledo and Seville with Robin Bartlett, fellow student at the Slade.
1925: Destroyed most of her work. November: married Robin Bartlett; they moved to flat in Fernshaw Road, Chelsea; December father died, leaving Agar £1000 per annum. Periods in cottage at Varengeville near Dieppe acquired by Bartlett
1926: Spring met Joseph Bard, began relationship which lasted fifty years. Separation from Bartlett
1927 - 1928: Agar and Joseph Bard took a flat in Fitzroy Square. Winter spent in Portofino. Met Ezra Pound. Agar stayed behind in Rapallo to paint, Bard returned to London. Photographed by Cecil Beaton. Spring: returned to London. Summer holiday: Birling Gap, near Eastbourne; Autumn: moved to Paris, took a flat in Rue Schoelcher
1928 - 1930: Studied painting with Czech Cubist painter, Frantisek Fòlt´yn; visited Brancusi’s studio; met Louis Marcoussis, André Breton and Paul Eluard
1929: Summer spent at Cap Martin. Visited by Evelyn Waugh
1930: Summer: Agar and Bard to Sark to stay with her sister, Winifred and her husband Hugh Mackintosh. Autumn: move to number 47 Bramham Gardens, London. Rodney Thomas designed interiors of studio and flat
1931: Publication of The Island, edited by Joseph Bard in collaboration with Leon Underwood. Agar contributed to all four numbers.
1933: First solo show at Bloomsbury Gallery – a seven-year retrospective. Joined the London Group, at suggestion of Henry Moore, and exhibited with them
1934: Summer at Wittersham, Kent. Visits from A R Orage and Henry and Irina Moore. Exhibited with the London Group. Made first collages
1935 - 1944: Affair with Paul Nash
1935: Summer: Bard and Agar took house at Swanage - met Paul Nash through Ashley Havinden. Nash introduced Agar to the idea of the ‘found object’. She found a ‘seashore monster’.
1936: Penrose and Read as British selectors for the International Surrealist Exhibition, London, visited Agar’s studio and chose 3 oils and 5 objects. Agar’s work appeared in the exhibition held at the New Burlington Galleries, London, alongside work by Picasso, Miró, Ernst etc. July: Agar and Bard travelled to Ploumanach, Brittany. Agar acquired Rolleiflex camera and photographed the stones. Request from the Museum of Modern Art, New York, for loan of Quadriga for Fantastic Art, Dada & Surrrealism exhibition
1937 - 1940: Showed in exhibitions organised by the Surrealists in England
1937: Summer: Eluard visited Agar and Bard in London. July: Agar and Bard stayed at Lambe Creek, Cornwall with Roland Penrose, Lee Miller, Paul and Nusch Eluard. Agar started affair with Eluard. September: travelled with them to Hôtel Vaste Horizon, Mougins to join Picasso and Man Ray. November: Surrealist Objects & Poems exhibition at the London Gallery. Agar exhibited Angel of Anarchy (first version). Also exhibited with International Association and with the London Group
1938: Summer: to Somerset – a period more of travel than work. September: to Knokke in Belgium. Agar took more photographs
1939: Spring: to Toulon. Agar painted soldiers on the quay and found the amphora base for the Marine Object in a fishing net. Exhibited with the London Group
1940: February 29th: married Joseph Bard. War disrupted painting. War work in a canteen in Savile Row until the end of the war. First meetings of the British Surrealists at the Barcelona Restaurant. Exhibited in Surrealism Today, at Zwemmer Gallery, London. Visits from Paul Nash
1941: Exhibited with the London Group
1942: Solo exhibition at the Redfern Gallery, London; exhibited with the London Group (also in 1943 & 1947)
1944: Visit to Buttermere in Lake District. Agar painted watercolour landscapes. Visit to Edinburgh. ELT Mesens published poem about Agar in Troisième Front
1945: War ended. Visit to Cornwall
1946: Started painting agagin but dissatisfied with work
1947: Contributed to the Surrealist exhibition at the Galerie Maeght, Paris. Travelled with the PEN Club to Stockholm
1949: Spring: solo exhibition at the Hanover Gallery, written up by Geoffrey Grigson in The Listener. Summer: with PEN Club to Venice. Met Peggy Guggenheim
1950: Summer: to Provence with sister Winifred
1952 - 1953: Winter: to Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife; began to make watercolours and frottages of the landscape
1954 - 1957: Winter: visits to Tenerife
1958: Agar and Bard moved to West House, Melbury Road, Kensington
1960: Visits to Venice and Cornwall. Joseph Bard unwell
1962: Joseph Bard ill. Tate Gallery bought the Flying Pillar
1965: Agar discoved acrylic paints
1968: Proposal for retrospective exhibition. Began large scale canvases for the exhibition
1971: Retrospective exhibition at the Commonwealth Institute, London
1975: July 26: death of Joseph Bard
1981: Exhibition of recent work at the New Art Centre
1985: Began a series of paintings based on photographs of Ploumanach. Photographed by Lord Snowden modelling clothes by Issey Miyake
1987: Moved from Westbury House
1988: Autobiography A Look at my Life published
1989: Appeared in Channel Four TV documentary Five Women Artists
1990: Elected Academician of the Royal Academy, London
1991: November 17: died in London

Exhibitions

2000: Eileen Agar 1899-1991: Paintings and Drawings A Centenary Exhibition, The Redfern Gallery, London (solo)
1999 - 2000: Eileen Agar 1899-1991: A Centenary Exhibition,Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh and Leeds City Art Gallery (solo)
1997: El Objecto Surrealista, Ivam Centre Julio Gonzalez, Valencia
1996: In the Mind’s Eye: Surrealist Works on Paper, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
1992: Ten Decades. Careers of Ten Women Artists Born 1897-1906. Norwich Gallery, Norfolk Institute of Art and Design, Norwich
1990: Collages Surréalistes, Galerie Zabriskie, Paris
1989: British Surrealism, Blond Fine Art, London
: I surrealisti, Palazzo Reale, Milan
1988: The Surrealist Spirit in England, Whitford and Hughes, London
: Retrospective Exhibition, Birch and Conran Gallery, London (solo)
: Surrealismi Retretti, Art Centre Suomi, Finland
1987: La Femme et le Surréalisme, Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne
1986: Contrariwise: Surrealism and Britain 1930-1986, Swansea Festival Exhibition, Swansea
: Surrealism in England, 1936 and After, Canterbury College of Art, Herbert Read Gallery, Canterbury
: Angels of Anarchy and Machines for Making Clouds. Surrealism in Britain in the Thirties, Leeds City Art Galleries
: Women Artists of the Surrealist Movement, Baruch College Gallery, New York
: British Surrealism – Fifty Years On, The Mayor Gallery, London
: British Surrealism – Fifty Years On, The Mayor Gallery, London
: 1936 Surrealism: Objects, Photographs, Collages, Documents, Zabriskie Gallery, New York
: Objects from a Landscape Ploumanach and Port-Cross, New Art Centre, London (solo)
: La Planète affolée: Surréalsime dispersion et influences 1938-1947, Musées de Marseilles
: A Salute to British Surrealism 1930-1950, The Minories, Colchester; Blond Fine Art, London; Ferens Art Gallery, Hull
1985: British Women Surrealists, Blond Fine Art, London
: Je ne comprends pas la raison, James Birch Fine Art, London
1984: New Art Centre, London (solo)
: In the Spirit of Surrealism, Oliver Bradbury and James Birch Fine Art, London
1983: New Art Centre, London (solo)
: The Story of the Artists’ International Association, 1933-1953, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford and touring
1982: The Women’s Art Show 1950-1970, Nottingham City Museum and Art Gallery, Nottingham
: Peinture Surréaliste en Angleterre 1930-1969, Galerie 1900-2000, Paris
: The First Fifty Years. British Art of the Twentieth Century, National Art Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand
1981: Image and Form: British Sculpture in the 20th Century, 1901-1950, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
: Paintings and Drawings, New Art Centre, London (solo)
1980: Clementi House, London (solo)
: The Other Face of the Avant-Garde 1910-1940, Palazzo Reale, Milan and Stockholm
: Photographic Surrealism, travelling exhibition, New York, Cleveland, Ohio and touring
1979: International Exhibition of Soft Art, Kunsthaus, Zurich
: Thirties: British Art and Design before the War, Hayward Gallery, London
: New Art Centre, London (solo)
1978: Dada and Surrealism Reviewed, Hayward Gallery, London
: British Painting 1900-1960, Sheffield City Art Gallery
: Leon Underwood and 12 Girdler’s Road, New Arts Centre, London.
1976: A Decade of Discoveries, New Art Centre, London (solo)
1975: New Art Centre, London (solo)
: The Obelisk Gallery, London (solo)
1974: British Painting 1974, Hayward Gallery, London
: Hampstead in the Thirties. A Committed Decade, Camden Arts Centre, London
1973: The Illustration of Reality and the Reality of Illusion, McRobert Centre, Stirling University
1971: Britain’s Contribution to Surrealism of the ‘30s and ‘40s, Hamet Gallery, London
: Retrospective Exhibition, Commonwealth Art Gallery, London (solo)
1969: John Moores’ Exhibition, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
1967: The Enchanted Domain, Surrealist Art, The City Gallery, Exeter
: Moyan Gallery 2, Manchester (solo)
1965: Art in Britain 1930-40, Marlborough Gallery, London
1964: Paintings and Collages, Brook Street Gallery, London (solo)
: Fifty Years of British Art 1914-64, London Group Jubilee Exhibition, Tate Gallery, London
1963: Bilico Gallery, Rome (solo)
1962: Recent Paintings 1960-62, Brook Street Gallery, London (solo)
1961: John Moores’ Exhibition, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
: The Art of Assemblage, Museum of Modern Art, New York
1956: Modern Trends in Watercolour Painting, Cumberland House, Museum and Art Gallery, Portsmouth
1952: Mirror and the Square, New Burlington Galleries, London
: The Hanover Gallery, London (solo)
1951: London Group, New Burlington Galleries, London
1949: Recent Paintings, The Hanover Gallery, London (solo)
1947: The Leger Gallery, London (solo)
: Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme, Galerie Maeght, Paris
1945: Works, by Eminent British Artists, Russell-Cotes Gallery, Bournemouth
1944: The Redfern Gallery, London (solo)
1942: The Redfern Gallery, London (solo)
: New Movements in Contemporary Art. Contemporary Work in England, London Museum, London
1940: Surrealist Work: Artists’ International Association, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
: Surrealism Today, Zwemmer Gallery, London
: Artists’ International Association, Artists for Peace, Democracy and Cultural Development, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
1939: Living Art in England, London Gallery, London
: British Surrealist and Abstract Paintings, Northampton Art Gallery, Northampton
1938: Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme, Galerie Robert, Amsterdam
: Pictures on the Staircase, London Gallery, London
1937: Artists’ International Association, Unity of Artists for Peace, Democracy And Cultural Development, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
: 38 Surrealist Objects and Poems, London Gallery, London
: Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme, Nippon Salon, Tokyo, Japan
: Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism, Museum of Modern Art, New York
1936: International Surrealist Exhibition, New Burlington Galleries, London
1933: Bloomsbury Gallery, London (solo)