Editing Ithell Colquhoun (section)

==Biography==
Margaret Ithell Colquhoun was born in [[Shillong]], [[British India]],<ref name="Phaidon Editors">{{cite book |title=Great Women Artists |year=2019 |publisher=Phaidon Press |isbn=978-0714878775 |page=106}}</ref> the daughter of Henry Archibald Colebrooke Colquhoun and Georgia Frances Ithell Manley.  She was educated in Rodwell, near [[Weymouth, Dorset]], before attending [[Cheltenham Ladies' College]].<ref name="ODNB">{{cite ODNB|id=64737|title=Colquhoun, (Margaret) Ithell (1906&ndash;1988), painter and poet|last1=Remy|first1=Michel|year=2009}}</ref>  She became interested in occultism at the age of 17 after reading about [[Aleister Crowley]]'s [[Abbey of Thelema]].{{sfn|Morrisson|2014|p=592}}  Colquhoun studied from 1925 at Cheltenham School of Art for a year.{{sfn|Hale|2020|p=30}}{{sfn|Shillitoe|2019|p=18}}  From October 1927 she studied at the [[Slade School of Art]] in London, where she was taught by [[Henry Tonks]] and [[Randolph Schwabe]]. While at the Slade, she joined [[G.R.S. Mead]]'s Quest Society, and in 1930 published her first article, "The Prose of Alchemy", in the society's journal.{{sfn|Morrisson|2014|p=592}} In 1929, Colquhoun received the Slade's Summer Composition Prize for her painting ''Judith Showing the Head of Holofernes'', and in 1931 it was exhibited in the Royal Academy.<ref name=Tate>{{cite web|title=Ithell Colquhoun|last=Gale|first=Matthew|year=1997|url=https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/ithell-colquhoun-931|access-date=15 July 2019}}</ref> Despite her studies at the Slade, Colquhoun was primarily a self-taught artist.<ref name=ODNB/>

After leaving the Slade in 1931, Colquhoun spent several years travelling.{{sfn|Hale|2020|p=33}} She established a studio in Paris,<ref name=Tate/> where she first encountered Surrealists, including [[René Magritte]], [[André Breton]], [[Salvador Dalí]], [[Marcel Duchamp]], and [[Man Ray]]<ref name=Pompidou-Llewellyn>{{cite web|url=https://www.centrepompidou.fr/en/magazine/article/ithell-colquhoun-high-priestess-of-british-surrealism|title=Ithell Colquhoun, High Priestess of British Surrealism|publisher=Centre Pompidou|last=Llewellyn|first=Sacha|date=4 September 2024}}</ref> and attended the Académie Colarossi in 1931<ref name=Pompidou-Llewellyn/> where she read [[Peter Neagoe]]'s 1932 essay ''What is Surrealism?''<ref>{{Cite book|title=Ithell Colquhoun: Pioneer Surrealist Artist, Occulist, Writer and Poet|last=Ratcliffe|first=Eric|publisher=Mandrake of Oxford|year=2007|page=35}}</ref> During the 1930s she also spent time in [[Greece]], [[Corsica]], and [[Tenerife]].<ref name=Tate/> While in Greece, Colquhoun met and became infatuated with a woman, Andromache "Kyria" Kazou, who was the subject of several drawings and paintings and an unpublished manuscript, ''[[Lesbian]] Shore''. Kazou appears to have visited Colquhoun in Paris and Colquhoun later invited her to move to London so they could live together, though Kazou never did so.{{sfn|Hale|2020|pp=34&ndash;35}}

Colquhoun exhibited three paintings in Paris in 1933, and one work at the [[Royal Society of Scotland]] in 1934.{{sfn|Hale|2020|p=36}} In 1936, she had her first solo exhibition at the [[The Wilson (Cheltenham)|Cheltenham Art Gallery]],<ref name=ODNB/> where she showed 91 works.{{sfn|Hale|2020|p=37}}  A solo exhibition at the [[Fine Art Society]] in London followed in the same year.<ref name=Tate/>

[[File:Salvador Dalí 1939.jpg|thumb|right|Colquhoun's interest in Surrealism deepened after seeing [[Salvador Dalí]] lecture in 1936]]
Colquhoun's interest in Surrealism deepened after seeing [[Salvador Dalí]] lecture at the 1936 ''[[London International Surrealist Exhibition|International Exhibition of Surrealism]]'' in London.{{sfn|Ferentinou|2011|p=2}} In 1937 she joined the [[Artists' International Association]],<ref name=ODNB/> and in the late 1930s she became increasingly associated with the surrealist movement in Britain. She published work in the ''London Bulletin'' in 1938 and 1939,{{sfn|Ades|1980|p=40}} visited [[André Breton]] in Paris in 1939,{{sfn|Ferentinou|2011|p=2}} and joined the [[British Surrealist Group]] in the same year.<ref name=ODNB/> Also in 1939, she exhibited with [[Roland Penrose]] at the [[Mayor Gallery]],<ref name=Tate/> showing 14 oil paintings and two objects.{{sfn|Ades|1980|p=40}}  After only a year as a member of the British Surrealist Group, Colquhoun was expelled in 1940, due to her refusal to comply with [[E.L.T. Mesens]]' demands that the surrealists should not be members of any other groups, which Colquhoun felt would interfere with her studies of occultism.  This led to Colquhoun's exclusion from other exhibitions organised by the British surrealists, but she continued to work with surrealist principles.{{sfn|Ferentinou|2011|p=2}}

In the 1940s, Colquhoun met and began a relationship with the Russian-born Italian artist and critic [[Toni del Renzio]]. Though he criticised her art as "sterile abstractions" in an essay in his magazine ''Arson'' in March 1942, he soon moved in with her, and in December that year she exhibited at a show at the International Art Centre in London, organised by del Renzio.{{sfn|Hale|2020|p=71}} They married in 1943.<ref name=ODNB/>  This marriage further alienated her from the British surrealist movement, as del Renzio had his own rivalry with Mesens, due to del Renzio's ambition to become the leader of that group.{{sfn|Shillitoe|2019|p=20}} According to Eric Ratcliffe, their studio in [[Bedford Park, London]], became an open house for friends, other artists and like-minded individuals. The marriage later became unhappy and they divorced &ndash; "acrimoniously", according to Matthew Gale &ndash; in 1947.<ref name=Tate/> From 1945, Colquhoun lived and worked in Parkhill Road, Hampstead.

Colquhoun began to visit [[Cornwall]] during the [[Second World War]]. From 1947, she rented a studio near [[Penzance]], and divided her time between there and London;{{sfn|Hale|2020|p=97}} in 1959 she moved to [[Paul, Cornwall]].{{sfn|Hale|2020|p=122}}<!--ONDB says she bought Vow Cave in 1946 and moved to Paul in 1957; Shillitoe agrees with Hale's chronology--> She remained in Cornwall for the rest of her life.<ref name=ODNB/>  After her move to Cornwall, Colquhoun increasingly focused on publishing her writing,{{sfn|Hale|2020|p=104}} and from the 1960s her output of visual art substantially declined in favour of her writing and her [[occult]] activities.{{sfn|Hale|2020|p=106}}

She had solo exhibitions in 1947 at the Mayor Gallery, in 1972 at Exeter Museum and Art Gallery, and in 1976 at the Newlyn Orion Gallery.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|encyclopedia=Benezit Dictionary of Artists|title=Colquhoun, Ithell|year=2011 |doi=10.1093/benz/9780199773787.article.B00040848}}</ref> Colquhoun continued making art until around 1983. She spent her final years in a [[nursing home]] in [[Lamorna]], where she died in 1988.{{sfn|Hale|2020|p=270}}

Colquhoun left her literary works to the writer [[Derek Stanford (writer)|Derek Stanford]], her occult work to [[Tate Galleries|the Tate]], and the remainder of her art to the [[National Trust]]. The [[copyright]] for the works she sold (or gifted) during her lifetime was left to [[The Samaritans]], the [[Noise Abatement Society]], and the Sister Perpetua Wing of [[St Anthony's Hospital, North Cheam]].{{sfn|Shillitoe|2023|pp=193&ndash;198}} In 2019, the [[Tate]] acquired the National Trust's holdings of Colquhoun's works.<ref name=Brown19>{{cite news|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/jul/15/tate-acquires-vast-archive-of-british-surrealist-ithell-colquhoun|access-date=15 July 2019|title=Tate acquires vast archive of British surrealist Ithell Colquhoun|date=15 July 2019|last=Brown|first=Mark}}</ref>