Abstract with Eye and Breast

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 bleeding to create chance patterns which she has developed into figurative elements based on the unconscious associations they triggered. It was made in 1938, during Pailthorpe and Mednikoff’s formal association with the British Surrealist group. Eyes were a recurring motif for the Surrealist movement. In this work, the artist combines the spherical forms of eyes with those of breasts, reflecting her interest in the theories of Melanie Klein, a child psychoanalyst.