Press Release

Angels of Anarchy: Women Artists and Surrealism

26 September 2009 – 10 January 2010
Manchester Art Gallery

Tickets: £6 (concessions £4, free entry for under 18s and Manchester Art Gallery Friends)

The first major exhibition of women artists and Surrealism to be held in Europe, Angels of
Anarchy, opens this autumn at Manchester Art Gallery. Featuring over 150 artworks by 32
women artists, the exhibition is a celebration of the crucial, but at the time not fully
recognised, role that women artists have played within Surrealism.

Paintings, prints, photographs, surreal objects and sculptures by well-known international

artists including Frida Kahlo, Meret Oppenheim, Leonora Carrington and Lee Miller will be
exhibited alongside works by artists less well-known in the UK, such as Emila Medková, Jane
Graverol, Mimi Parent, Kay Sage and Francesca Woodman. Manchester Art Gallery is the only
venue for this exhibition, making it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the works of so
many significant women artists displayed together, with many of the works on loan from
international public and private collections.

Angels of Anarchy includes some of the most important, radical (and sometimes still
shocking) Surrealist works produced during the 20th century by women artists from across
the globe, including artists from Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Mexico, Switzerland, the
UK and the USA.

The exhibition is an ambitious exploration of how women artists have responded to and
challenged the traditionally male-dominated artistic subjects of landscape, portraiture, still-
life, the domestic interior and fantasy within the Surrealist genre. Through these five themes,
the show reveals how these women have developed, enriched and significantly reshaped
Surrealism to create an empowering and erotic art form which speaks of their experiences as
women and as artists.

Among the best-known and most significant artworks in the show are: Leonora Carrington’s
Self-Portrait (The Inn of the Dawn Horse) (c. 1937-38) and Meret Oppenheim’s iconic objects
Fur Gloves with Wooden Fingers (1936) and Squirrel (1973/4). The show also includes the rare
exhibition of two of Eileen Agar’s most famous works together: Angel of Anarchy (1936 - 40)
and the counterpart Angel of Mercy (1936).

Frida Kahlo’s exquisite self-portrait Diego and I (1949) features in the exhibition together with
a number of her significant, yet little known still-lifes such as Still Life with Parrot and Flag
(1951) and a selection of intimate photographic portraits of the artist by Lola Álvarez Bravo.
The exhibition also includes a selection of photographs of women artists by Lee Miller and
Dora Maar, a series of androgynous and highly theatrical self-portraits by Claude Cahun, and
several haunting self-portraits by Francesca Woodman.

A number of the works on display have rarely been on public display, including a Cast of Lee
Miller’s Torso (c. 1942), while other works by lesser-known artists have never been shown in
public before, such as the arresting Mouth with Ear (1973) by Penny Slinger and Josette
Exandier’s La Caresse (1995).

Angels of Anarchy also includes a selection of ephemera such as poetry, books, photographs,
letters and cards to illustrate the fascinating relationships between many of the Surrealist
artists. In addition, it features a number of Surrealist objects and works on paper (known as
‘Exquisite Corpses’) made collaboratively by female and male members of the Surrealist group.
These, in particular, demonstrate some of the unconventional and playful ways the artists
challenged the male tradition of working individually.

Between September and January, Manchester Art Gallery is hosting a full programme of
events, talks and lectures to coincide with the exhibition, including lectures by author (and
son of Lee Miller) Antony Penrose, art historian Dr Alyce Mahon, and the exhibition curator Dr
Patricia Allmer. The gallery is also holding lunchtime tours, workshops with contemporary
artists influenced by Surrealism, and surrealist poetry workshops and readings alongside the
exhibition. In addition, Manchester’s Cornerhouse cinema is showcasing a Surreal film series,
featuring women filmmakers such as Germaine Dulac, Bady Minck and Nelly Kaplan.

Accompanying the exhibition is a fully-illustrated scholarly catalogue, edited by selector Dr

Patricia Allmer, exhibition curator and Research Fellow in Art History at Manchester
Metropolitan University. The catalogue includes over 100 colour plates of works featured in
the exhibition, together with seven essays by leading international scholars in the study of
Surrealism including the Introduction – From Fallen Angels to Angels of Anarchy by Dr Patricia
Allmer. The book is published by Manchester Art Gallery in partnership with Prestel Publishing.

ENDS

For more information please contact Claire Walsh or Maria Marques, Brunswick PR.
mag@brunswickgroup.com
+44 (0) 20 7396 1290

Date issued: 15 June 2009

Notes to editors
Exhibition supported by the Northwest Regional Development Agency.

The accompanying book will include essays by:

• Professor Roger Cardinal, Emeritus Professor of Literary & Visual Studies at the
University of Kent University of Kent, Canterbury.
• Professor Mary Ann Caws, Distinguished Professor of English, French, and Comparative
Literature and in the Film Studies Program at the Graduate School of the City University
of New York.
• Professor Georgiana Colvile, Professor Emeritus of Anglophone Studies at the
Université de Tours, France.
• Professor Katharine Conley, Professor of French and Associate Dean for the Arts and
Humanities at Dartmouth College.
 • Dr Alyce Mahon, Senior Lecturer in the History of Art and a Fellow of Trinity College at
the University of Cambridge.
• Dr Donna Roberts, Independent Scholar.

Manchester Art Gallery

Mosley Street
Manchester M2 3JL
www.manchestergalleries.org
http://www.angelsofanarchy.org.uk/

Tel: 0161 2358888.

Textphone: 0161 235 8893

Open: Tuesday – Sunday and Bank Holiday Mondays, 10am – 5pm

Closed: Mondays and 24 – 26, 31 December and 1 January

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