A monster with five feet
Can I see it?
Not on view at present
Where is “A monster with five feet” now? Collection: Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Not on view at present. Checked September 25, 2026.
London, United Kingdom
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the work
Grace Pailthorpe (1883–1971) was a surgeon, psychoanalyst and Surrealist artist. In 1935 she met Reuben Mednikoff, an advertising artist 23 years her junior. They began a life-long collaboration in which they used Surrealist ‘automatic’ processes as methods of psychoanalytic experimentation. In this painting, Pailthorpe uses watercolour to create an abstract shape which she has worked up with ink based on the unconscious associations it triggered. Within the monstrous form, phallic images and breasts are visible. Babies and children’s toys have also been added with ink, reflecting the significance of childhood experience in Freudian psychoanalysis. This work was made in 1940, the year in which Pailthorpe and Mednikoff broke with the British Surrealist group and moved to North America to continue their research.
Victoria and Albert Museum
Details
- Accession number
- P.41-1983
What it shows
In the catalog
Sources
- Victoria and Albert Museum
- Image: Victoria and Albert Museum — © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
