Ithell Colquhoun (British, 1906-1988)
Church Interior (Corsica)

signed and dated 'Colquhoun/38' (upper left)
watercolour on multiple sheets

Dimensions: 41.3 x 55.8 cm. (16 1/4 x 22 in.)

Sale; Rupert Toovey & Co, West Sussex, 13 March 1998, lot 1764 (as Interior Design with Staircase)
Jarvis Hotels, Ltd.
Sale; Kidson-Trigg, Swindon, 17 June 2008, lot 75, where purchased by
Private Collection, U.K.
Their sale; Dreweatts, Newbury, 12 March 2025, lot 220, where purchased by the present owner

We are grateful to Dr. Richard Shillitoe for his assistance in cataloguing this lot

"The act of painting, therefore, becomes an act of divination that connects the artists to natural and spiritual forces. Automatic paintings reveal the interconnectedness of the inner and outer worlds, the subject and the object, the I and the Other" - Ithell Colquhoun

Ithell Colquhoun (1906–1988) was a British painter, writer and occultist whose work bridges Surrealism, mysticism and the landscape tradition. Born in Shillong, India, and educated in England, she trained at the Slade School of Fine Art in London from 1927, where she studied under Henry Tonks and Randolph Schwabe and won the 1929 Summer Composition Prize. After leaving the Slade, Colquhoun spent time in Paris, briefly attending the Académie Colarossi and encountering the international Surrealist circle that would shape her artistic direction. Here she would encounter René Magritte, André Breton, Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, and Man Ray, all of whom significantly influenced her outlook and output.

Throughout the 1930s she travelled widely in the Mediterranean, producing luminous watercolours and architectural studies that combined observation with an emerging sense of the visionary. During a period spent in Corsica in 1938, she executed a series of works depicting church interiors and deserted market squares, which anticipate her later exploration of sacred space and the animate landscape. These works emphasise the empty spaces, architecture, psychological atmosphere rather than purely figurative narrative.

Her travels also brought her into contact with the Greek woman Andromache “Kyria” Kazou, whose friendship and correspondence inspired a series of paintings and writings concerned with female identity and the esoteric feminine. By the end of the decade Colquhoun had become associated with the British Surrealists, though she later pursued an independent path, uniting artistic creation with her study of alchemy and occult philosophy.

Ithell Colquhoun was the subject of a major exhibition at Tate Britain this year, which ran concurrently alongside an exhibition of Edward Burra, the artist of the previous two lots.

Ithell Colquhoun was a British painter, writer and occultist whose work bridges Surrealism, mysticism and the landscape tradition. Born in Shillong, India, and educated in England, she trained at the Slade School of Fine Art in London from 1927, where she studied under Henry Tonks and Randolph Schwabe and won the 1929 Summer Composition Prize. After leaving the Slade, Colquhoun spent time in Paris, briefly attending the Académie Colarossi and encountering the international Surrealist circle that would shape her artistic direction. Here she would encounter René Magritte, André Breton, Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, and Man Ray, all of whom significantly influenced her outlook and output.

"The act of painting, therefore, becomes an act of divination that connects the artists to natural and spiritual forces. Automatic paintings reveal the interconnectedness of the inner and outer worlds, the subject and the object, the I and the Other" - Ithell Colquhoun

Throughout the 1930s she travelled widely in the Mediterranean, producing luminous watercolours and architectural studies that combined observation with an emerging sense of the visionary. During a period spent in Corsica in 1938, she executed a series of works depicting church interiors and deserted market squares, which anticipate her later exploration of sacred space and the animate landscape. These works emphasise the empty spaces, architecture, psychological atmosphere rather than purely figurative narrative.

Her travels also brought her into contact with the Greek woman Andromache “Kyria” Kazou, whose friendship and correspondence inspired a series of paintings and writings concerned with female identity and the esoteric feminine. By the end of the decade Colquhoun had become associated with the British Surrealists, though she later pursued an independent path, uniting artistic creation with her study of alchemy and occult philosophy.

Ithell Colquhoun was the subject of a major exhibition at Tate Britain this year, which ran concurrently alongside an exhibition of Edward Burra, the artist of the previous two lots.