Grace Pailthorpe

Grace W. Pailthorpe
Born 29 July 1883
St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex
Died 19 July 1971(1971-07-19) (aged 87)
St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex
Nationality British
Education
Known for Artist, surgeon and psychoanalyst
Style Surrealism

Grace W. Pailthorpe (29 July 1883 – 19 July 1971) was a British surrealist painter, surgeon, and psychology researcher.

Biography

Pailthorpe was born in St Leonards-on-Sea in Sussex in 1883.[1] She was the third child and the only daughter among the ten children born to Edward Pailthorpe and Lavinia Green, who were both members of the Plymouth Brethren, a strict and puritanical religious sect.[2]

Pailthorpe enrolled at the Royal College of Music in 1908 but soon decided to study medicine and by 1914 had qualified as a doctor at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle upon Tyne with a degree awarded by Durham University.[3] During World War I she served, with some distinction, as a surgeon at military hospitals in London, Paris and Liverpool. In 1915 she worked, alongside both Henry Tonks and John Masefield, at the Hôpital Temporaire d'Arc-en-Barrois in the Haute Marne district of France, and during 1916 Pailthorpe worked as a surgeon at the Scottish Women's Hospital in Salonika.[3]

After the war, Pailthorpe travelled extensively across the world, including four years spent working as a district medical officer at Youanmi in Western Australia between 1918 and 1922.[4] When she returned to England in 1922, Pailthorpe began studying psychological medicine and Freudian analysis. She started research into criminal psychology at Birmingham Prison and, in 1923, with a grant from the Medical Research Council began research at Holloway Women's Prison.[3] The same year she had a paper on delinquent behavior published in The Lancet and became an associate member of the British Psychoanalytic Society. She proceeded to publish books and papers on the psychology of delinquency and, in 1931, established the Association for the Scientific Treatment of Criminals, which eventually became the modern day Portman Clinic, now based within the National Health Service, and the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies.[5] The Association was the first in the world for the scientific treatment of delinquency and counted among it's Vice Presidents Carl Jung, H. G. Wells and Sigmund Freud.[6] In 1932 she published two papers on her Holloway Prison research and in 1934 resumed taking private patients for psychoanalysis.[3]

In 1935 Pailthorpe met Reuben Mednikoff and together they began research into the psychology of art.[1] Married and living in Port Isaac in Cornwall the couple undertook experiments in psychoanalysis and created surrealist art.[7] Pailthorpe contributed to the International Surrealist Exhibition held in London during 1936 and also contributed to other Surrealist exhibitions and publications, such as the London Bulletin.[8] Her paintings and drawings were greatly praised by, among others, André Breton.[6] In 1938 Pailthorpe published The Scientific Aspect of Surrealism which was not well received by other British Surrealist artists. After a series of disagreements about organisation and exhibition spaces, Pailthorpe and Mednikoff were "formally" expelled from the British Surrealist group in 1940.[4][8] She continued her research in America and Canada between 1939 and 1946, when she returned to England.[1] Pailthorpe continued to paint throughout the remainder of her life.[4] In 1992 her work was included in the exhibition Women Artists of the British Surrealist Movement, 1930-1990 and a joint retrospective with Mednikoff, Sluice Gates of the Mind was held at Leeds City Art Gallery.[4]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Frances Spalding (1990). 20th Century Painters and Sculptors. Antique Collectors' Club. ISBN 1 85149 106 6.
  2. ↑ Catherine Milner (24 January 1998). "The eeriest couple in art". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 6 June 2018.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Nigel Welsh & Andrew Wilson (Eds.) (1998). Sluice Gates of the Mind, The Collaborative Work of Pailthorpe and Mednikoff. Leeds Museums and Galleries. ISBN 090198163X.
  4. 1 2 3 4 David Buckman (2006). Artists in Britain Since 1945 Vol 2, M to Z. Art Dictionaries Ltd. ISBN 0 953260 95 X.
  5. ↑ "History;-Centre for Crime and Justice Studies". Centre for Crime and Justice Studies. Retrieved 6 June 2018.
  6. 1 2 Patrica Allmer (Editor) (2009). Angels of Anarchy, Women Artists and Surrealism. Prestel / Manchester Art Gallery. ISBN 978-3-7913-4365-5.
  7. ↑ "Reuben Mednikoff". Peter Nahum At the Leicester Galleries. Retrieved 6 June 2018.
  8. 1 2 The Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg. Blast to Freeze, British Art in the 20th Century. Hatje Cantz Publishers. ISBN 3-7757-1248-8.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.