✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

You have reached the limit of free articles.


To enjoy unlimited access to Culture Whisper sign up for FREE.
Find out more about Culture Whisper


Sign up by Email or Facebook.

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy

Each week, we sent newsletters and communication featuring articles, our latest tickets invitations, and exclusive offers.

Occasional information about discounts, special offers and promotions.


OR
LOG IN

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

Thanks for signing up to Culture Whisper.
Please check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the link to verify your account.



EXPLORE CULTURE WHISPER
✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy
Forgot your username or password?
Don't have an account? Sign Up

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

If you click «Log in with Facebook» and are not a Culture Whisper user, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and to our Privacy Policy, which includes our Cookie Use

Turning tips into memories

Get started Login
  • Home
  • Going Out
    • Things to do
    • Food & Drink
    • Theatre
    • Visual Arts
    • Cinema
    • Kids
    • Festival
    • Gigs
    • Dance
    • Classical Music
    • Opera
    • Immersive
    • Talks
  • Staying In
    • TV
    • Books
    • Cook
    • Podcast
    • Design
    • Netflix
  • Life & Style
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Gifting
    • Wellbeing
    • Lifestyle
    • Shopping
    • Jewellery
  • Explore
  • Kids
  • Benefits
  • Membership
  • Get Started
  • Membership
  • Benefits
Get the Best of London Life, Culture and Style
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
Visual Arts

Eileen Agar: Angel of Anarchy, Whitechapel Gallery

19 May 21 – 29 Aug 21, Tuesday - Sunday, 11am - 6pm

The Whitechapel Gallery is staging the largest exhibition of Eileen Agar’s work to date

By Lucy Scovell on 17/3/2021

Eileen Agar Eileen Agar 1927 Oil on canvas 765 mm x 641 mm NPG 5881 © The estate of Eileen Agar
Eileen Agar Eileen Agar 1927 Oil on canvas 765 mm x 641 mm NPG 5881 © The estate of Eileen Agar
Eileen Agar: Angel of Anarchy, Whitechapel Gallery Eileen Agar: Angel of Anarchy, Whitechapel Gallery Holly CW
Eileen Agar (1899-1991) saw her art as a means of exploring ‘imaginative playfulness’. Over the course of her near seven-decade career, she created work spanning sculpture, painting, photography and collage, full of unusual shapes, visual metaphors, symmetries and Surrealist wit.


She was intrigued, she once said, by the Surrealists’ desire to paint ‘what goes on inside our heads’. But her work transcended Surrealism. She experimented with Cubism and abstraction, too, and found inspiration in everything from the natural world and ancient mythologies to sexual pleasure and her own biography.



Quadriga (1935) by Eileen Agar, oil on canvas, 510 x 610mm. Courtesy of The Penrose Collection © The estate of Eileen Agar


Although Agar worked prolifically until her death aged 91, her heyday was arguably the 1930s. She was part of a milieu that was as brilliant as it was transgressive: she befriended André Breton and holidayed with Picasso and Man Ray. She also met artist Paul Nash who would become her sometime lover. In 1936 she was one of few women to be included in the International Surrealist Exhibition, a seminal show that introduced Surrealism to Britain, at the New Burlington Galleries in London. The following year she participated in Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.




Angel of Anarchy (1936-1940) by Eileen Agar. Plaster, fabric, shells, beads, diamanté stones, other materials, 570 x 460 x 317mm. © Tate Image


Her works from this period are characterised by an experimental use of media, among them, Angel of Anarchy, a plaster-cast head covered with feathers, fabric and diamanté stones. During wartime, her energies were largely focused on the war effort. Post-war prosperity, however, saw the artist return to painting and embrace more joyful subjects. Dance of Peace (1945) and Cornucopia (1949) are illustrative of this.



Left: Dance of Peace (1945) by Eileen Agar. Collage and gouache on paper, Private Collection. © The estate of Eileen Agar. Right: Rock 3 1985 by Eileen Agar. Acrylic on canvas, 600 x 600 mm. Courtesy of Redfern Gallery, London © The estate of Eileen Agar


Although she exhibited less internationally after the war, her late-career works garnered interest from private collectors and public institutions alike. In 1959 The Arts Council purchased Agar’s Poet and his Muse; while in 1961 Tate acquired her 1960 portrait of friend and poet Dylan Thomas. In 1986, at the age of 87, she modelled for Issey Miyake. Four years later she was elected to the Royal Academy.


A new retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery, Eileen Agar: Angel of Anarchy, celebrates a phenomenal career that spanned almost a century. The largest exhibition of Agar’s work to date will bring together over 100 paintings, collages, photographs, assemblages and archive material, much of which has been rarely exhibited, to chart the development of her uniquely spirited style. ‘I’ve enjoyed life,’ Agar once said. This exhibition looks set to prove that.




What Eileen Agar: Angel of Anarchy, Whitechapel Gallery
Where Whitechapel Gallery, 72-78 Whitechapel High Street, London, E1 7QX | MAP
Nearest tube Aldgate East (underground)
When 19 May 21 – 29 Aug 21, Tuesday - Sunday, 11am - 6pm
Price £9.50
Website For more information and to book



Most popular

Things to do in London this weekend: 16 - 18 April. © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved, DACS 2021 Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Courtesy Gagosian
Things to do in London this weekend: 16 - 18 April
Kelly Macdonald in Line of Duty season 6, BBC One (Photo: BBC)
Line of Duty season 6 episode 4, BBC One review
Eve Myles in Keeping Faith series 3, BBC One (Photo: BBC)
Keeping Faith series 3, BBC One review
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).

Whitechapel Gallery

visual arts

You might like

  • Tracey Emin/ Edvard Munch exhibition, Royal Academy

    Tracey Emin/ Edvard Munch exhibition, Royal Academy ★★★★★

  • Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Tate Britain 2020

    Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Fly in League with the Night, Tate Britain ★★★★★

  • An exhibition of Banksy's work is coming to London. Photo by Eric Ward on Unsplash

    The Art of Banksy exhibition, Covent Garden



  • The Culture Whisper team
  • What is Culture Whisper membership
  • Corporate membership
  • Give a gift membership
  • Retrieve a gift membership
  • Contact us
  • Press
  • FAQ
  • Privacy
  • Terms and conditions
  • Cookies
  • Discover
  • Venues
  • Restaurants
  • Stations
  • Boroughs
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
×