Rat or Mouse

Reuben Mednikoff (1906–1972) was a British artist associated with the Surrealist movement. In 1935 he met Grace Pailthorpe, a surgeon and psychoanalyst 23 years his senior. They began a life-long collaboration in which they used Surrealist ‘automatic’ processes as methods of psychoanalytic experimentation. This pen and ink drawing is inscribed ‘June 27 1936-2.’, indicating it was the second drawing made by the artist that day, and has a psychoanalytic interpretation written by the artist on the reverse. This demonstrates Mednikoff’s working process, drawing with the absence of conscious thought and cataloguing his progress scientifically. The image produced is like a scene from a nightmare, indicating how Pailthorpe and Mednikoff hoped to reveal repressed fears and desires through their art.