Edited with text by Laura Smith, Grace Storey. Text by Marina Warner, Daisy Lafarge, Andrew Lambirth.
A major survey of the pioneering cult British painter, collagist and photographer and her unique passage from biomorphic Surrealism to Tachist abstraction
Painter and photographer Eileen Agar (1899–1991) was born in Buenos Aires and spent the majority of her life in Great Britain. In spite of her own pioneering contributions to painting, collage, photography and sculpture, Agar’s career has largely been appraised in relation to her connections with major male figures of European modernism such as Paul Nash, Ezra Pound, Roland Penrose and Paul Éluard. This monograph seeks to overturn that narrative and delve into Agar as a fully autonomous artist whose unique style was a crucial element in the development of European culture in the 20th century.Dense with pattern and color, Agar’s work across various media draws from Cubist and Surrealist tendencies of material juxtapositions and fractured imagery, evoking emotion through distortion. Alongside reproductions of rarely seen artworks, writer Marina Warner, poet Daisy Lafarge and Agar’s biographer Andrew Lambirth reflect on the artist’s progressive attitudes toward art, sexuality and art history. The book is published with four different colored covers.
"Erotic Landscape" (1942) is reproduced from 'Eileen Agar: Angel of Anarchy.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Guardian
Laura Cumming
Agar’s sheer independence is fully apparent – in the rock photographs, the poured enamel paintings, the curious constructions, large and small but always as condensed as sonnets. So often she seems ahead of her times
Featured image, of the pioneering but largely overlooked British painter and photographer Eileen Agar wearing her “Ceremonial Hat for Eating Bouillabaisse,” is reproduced from Eileen Agar: Angel of Anarchy, published to accompany the vibrant, definitive retrospective currently on view at Whitechapel Gallery, London. “The 20th Century begins to discover that most of life’s meaning is lost, without the spirit of play,” Agar is quoted in an essay by Marina Warner. “In play all that is gay, lovely and soaring in the human spirit strives to find expression. To play is to yield oneself to a kind of magic, and to give the lie to the inconvenient world of fact, and the hideous edifice of unrelieved utility. In play the mind is prepared to accept the unimagined and incredible... to be free, unfettered and divine.’” continue to blog
FORMAT: Pbk, 8.5 x 10 in. / 272 pgs / 250 color / 20 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $45.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $63 ISBN: 9780854882922 PUBLISHER: Whitechapel Gallery AVAILABLE: 6/22/2021 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of print AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: NA ONLY
Published by Whitechapel Gallery. Edited with text by Laura Smith, Grace Storey. Text by Marina Warner, Daisy Lafarge, Andrew Lambirth.
A major survey of the pioneering cult British painter, collagist and photographer and her unique passage from biomorphic Surrealism to Tachist abstraction
Painter and photographer Eileen Agar (1899–1991) was born in Buenos Aires and spent the majority of her life in Great Britain. In spite of her own pioneering contributions to painting, collage, photography and sculpture, Agar’s career has largely been appraised in relation to her connections with major male figures of European modernism such as Paul Nash, Ezra Pound, Roland Penrose and Paul Éluard. This monograph seeks to overturn that narrative and delve into Agar as a fully autonomous artist whose unique style was a crucial element in the development of European culture in the 20th century.Dense with pattern and color, Agar’s work across various media draws from Cubist and Surrealist tendencies of material juxtapositions and fractured imagery, evoking emotion through distortion. Alongside reproductions of rarely seen artworks, writer Marina Warner, poet Daisy Lafarge and Agar’s biographer Andrew Lambirth reflect on the artist’s progressive attitudes toward art, sexuality and art history. The book is published with four different colored covers.
