A monster with five feet
Drawing
1941 (made)
1941 (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
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.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Title | A monster with five feet (assigned by artist) |
| Materials and techniques | Pen, ink and grey paint drawing |
| Brief description | Drawing, A monster with five feet, by Dr. Grace Pailthorpe, pen, ink and grey paint, 1941. |
| Physical description | Grey watercolour developed with ink. A monster composed of heavy, bulbous forms walks on five feet with boots on. The skin of the monster has a pattern resembling that of a giraffe. Within the monster’s body, phallic and breast-like images are visible. Emerging from the pattern, images of babies and children’s toys have been drawn with ink. Initalled and dated by the artist. |
| Dimensions |
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| Style | |
| Marks and inscriptions |
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| Subjects depicted | |
| Summary | 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. |
| Bibliographic reference | Haycock, David Boyd, Kirstie Meehan, and Sacha Llewellyn. British Surrealism. London: Dulwich Picture Gallery, 2020. p. 51. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | P.41-1983 |
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| Record created | June 30, 2009 |
| Record URL |
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