Composition with Spheres

Roland Penrose (1900-1984) was a British artist, collector and camouflage expert. He was a major organiser of the Surrealist group in Britain, co-organising the 1936 London International Surrealist Exhibition and co-founding the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in 1946. He was married to the poet Valentine Boué and later to Surrealist photographer Lee Miller. This work uses the Surrealist technique of ‘frottage’, pioneered by the artist Max Ernst as an automatic technique. Coloured chalks have been rubbed over natural materials to retain their texture and incorporate an element of chance into the artistic process. This work was made in 1929 when the artist was living in Paris. There, he had met Ernst and been inspired by his frottage series Histoire Naturelle (1926). This work is an example of Penrose’s early experimentation with Surrealist techniques, before the movement was firmly established in Britain in 1936.