Ithell Colquhoun Alcove II, 1948 Oil on board 22.9 x 34.3 cm Unit
Founded in 2013, Unit has established a steadfast commitment to championing contemporary artists, ensuring that their profound creative insights continue to challenge, inspire, and enrich global culture.
Based in Mayfair, London, the gallery’s core mission is to discover exceptional creative talent and expand its global reach and accessibility by connecting with wider audiences.
By doing so, Unit actively works to safeguard the vital position of the artist as a leading beacon of human imagination and creativity for the future. Over the years, the gallery has played a pivotal role in nurturing and advancing the careers of many significant international contemporary artists.
Ithell Colquhoun: Visionary of Surrealism and the Occult
Ithell Colquhoun was a groundbreaking British artist, author, and esoteric practitioner whose unique integration of Surrealism and mystical philosophy establishes her as one of the most radical creative voices of the twentieth century.
Her visionary work—celebrated extensively in the landmark 2025 retrospective Between Worlds at Tate St Ives and Tate Britain—fused automatic drawing techniques, magical symbolism, and a deep reverence for nature, the unconscious mind, and the divine feminine.
Born in Shillong, India, in 1906 to a British colonial family, Colquhoun relocated to England as an infant. She grew up in Cheltenham, attending Cheltenham Ladies’ College before studying at the Cheltenham School of Art and London's prestigious Slade School of Fine Art. In 1929, she earned the Slade Summer Composition Prize for her painting Judith Showing the Head of Holofernes.
Coming of age in the post-World War I era—a time marked by changing gender dynamics and growing pushback against imperial authority—she developed a lifelong fascination with alternative spiritualities and non-traditional artistic practices.
While her training at the Slade spanned both classical and modernist approaches, her artistic path shifted dramatically during trips to Paris in the early 1930s, where she encountered the Surrealist movement through key figures like Salvador Dalí and André Breton.
Her early paintings frequently utilized liminal structures such as doors, windows, and staircases, blending realistic detail with Surrealist concepts to explore the hidden depths of the human psyche and the boundaries between realities.
Evolution of Art and Practice
Colquhoun’s artistic journey was defined by a constant evolution from figurative Surrealism into abstraction and occult symbolism, touching heavily on themes of identity, mythology, gender, and the sacred energy of the natural world.
During the 1930s and 1940s, works like Judith Showing the Head of Holofernes (1929) and Scylla (1938) reinterpreted classic mythological and biblical narratives, frequently subverting male-dominated Surrealist tropes. Following a meeting with André Breton in 1939, she embraced automatic creation methods to bypass conscious thought, resulting in pieces like Rivières Tièdes (1939) that featured fluid, dreamlike shapes. Her first solo show at the Cheltenham Art Gallery in 1936 featured plant studies transformed into still-lifes infused with erotic symbolism, cementing her place within the Surrealist movement.
Ithell Colquhoun La Cathedrale Engloutie, 1952 Oil on canvas 131 x 195 cm Unit
Colquhoun's deep dive into alchemy, mysticism, and esoteric groups led to her departure from the British Surrealist Group in 1940 after she declined to leave her occult affiliations.
This independence allowed her to forge a deeply personal visual language, experimenting with unique automatic methods such as parsemage and crafting visionary pieces inspired by Celtic folklore and spiritual alchemy.
Relocating to Cornwall in the 1940s, she found endless inspiration in its rugged landscapes. Her mid-century works, including the enamel convulsive landscapes of the 1960s, utilized spontaneous dripping techniques to simulate volcanic formations and capture the essence of magical transformation.
In her later decades, Colquhoun completed a full Tarot deck alongside The Decad of Intelligence, a collection of paintings rooted in the Kabbalah that represented the ultimate synthesis of her artistic and magical pursuits. These late-period works stand among her most abstract and spiritual creations, serving as visual tools designed to aid in meditation and ritual work.
For her commissions, Colquhoun provided theatre set and costume designs for London stage productions throughout the 1930s through the 1950s, and developed an unrealized mural proposal for the 1951 Festival of Britain.
Regarding awards, she won the Slade School of Fine Art Summer Composition Prize in 1929 and received major posthumous recognition via the 2025 Tate retrospectives. Her solo exhibitions have featured in major shows including Ithell Colquhoun: Between Worlds at Tate St Ives and Tate Britain (2025), Elemental at the Ben Hunter Gallery in London (2023), and Ithell Colquhoun: Genius of the Fern Loved Gully at Falmouth Art Gallery (2021).
Additionally, her group exhibitions include international appearances at institutions like the Centre Pompidou in Paris (2024), Bonhams in London (2023), and Tate Modern in London (2022).
For further archival resources and official documentation regarding her life and work, you can visit her official website at ithellcolquhoun.co.uk.
Jake Wood-Evans The Birth of Venus, also known as, The Triumph of Neptune and Amphitrite, after Poussin, 2026 Oil on linen 200 x 260 cm Unit
