Ithell Colquhoun ( 1906-1988) ~ Day Star II, oil on paper 1964

 

 

Ithell Colquhoun (1906 - 1988)...Alchemical Figure, Androgyne, watercolour 1941

Ithell Colquhoun.... Autumnal Equinox, oil on canvas 1949

Muin (Sept 2nd-30th)

I am the month of Muin, month of the vine

Exhilaration is mine through the garland of fruit

Draped from the right shoulder across the swell

Of a belly like Primavera's; yet mine of early

Fall is the realm. On the head too are grapes

And the vine-leaves wreathing my autumn-coloured hair

My robe the bluish mist of a sky pregnant

With the first heavy dews.

How calm I am! Yet is there perhaps hidden

AN anger that gives authority to my poise?

I drank from the horn-cup and swam into a trance

So deep that only attraction amethystine

Recalls me, after a voyage through gates of horn

I come now to bless and renew dreams that are true

-Ithell Colquhoun

Ithell Colquhoun (1906-1988)... Imbolc... Feb 2 1972

Ithell Colquhoun... Gorgon... 1946

Ithell Colquhoun ... A Visitation... 1944

Ithell Colquhoun... Autumnal Equinox 1949

Ithell Colquhoun...watercolour... Green figure with wings 1971

Dolorosa... new drawing 2011 & Ithell Colquhoun poem...

Dolorosa ~ Arch Old Inquest ~2011

Sent Away

Sent away

By Light of day

I return

When candles burn

Ithell Colquhoun

Ithell Colquhoun...magick works..

Ithell Colquhoun

"Scylla" 1938

Ithell Colquhoun (1906-1988) is best known today for being a painter and author of great prominence on the British surrealist scene. She studied at the Slade School of Art in London and soon also studied the arts in France, and there met the master Salvador Dalí which made a great impact on her artistic expression. She made her debut at a exhibition in 1936 and by then already had developed her style which she herself described as "magic realism", showing strong influences of Dalí.

From 1939 and onwards Ithell often used a technique which can best be described as "automatic painting", i.e. the artistic equivalent of automatic writing, not uncommon amongst surrealist painters such as her mentor Salvador Dalí. It was also used amongst certain symbolist painters and writers, such as the Golden Dawn Adept William Butler Yeats. This is also a technique which naturally can be found in some occult circles, which leads us to Ithell's connections with the occult community, in which she was known as Soror Splendidior Vitro (see monogram at far right for this magical motto). Ithell in fact took part in the movement today commonly known as the Golden Dawn. There she used her artistic abilities in full bloom to express its occult worldview, especially connected to the Qabalistic glyph of the Tree of Life.

In the Golden Dawn community Ithell is best known to us for her seminal work and personal interpretation of the history of the Golden Dawn, called The Sword of Wisdom: MacGregor Mathers and the Golden Dawn. This book, which basically is a biography on S.L. MacGregor Mathers, was published by Spearman in 1975 and is currently out of print. Compared to the more academically rigid and hence dispassionate works of authors like Ellic Howe and R.A. Gilbert, the work of Ithell Colquhoun is written with love and passion for the tradition and from the perspective of an initiate. This makes the work the more interesting as it draws from many sources not strictly speaking legitimate from the academic angle, such as word of mouth traditions and gossip amongst initiates, etc.

Ithell also wrote one more occult work, the hermetic-surrealist novel Goose of Hermogenes, published by Peter Owen in 1961. This work was probably developed under the influence of automatic writing, or so Steve Nichols asserts us, and can be best regarded as a modern oracle. In short Ithell's heroine finds out, while visiting her uncle at his island that exists out of time and space, that he actually is in search of the philosopher’s stone. Goose of Hermogenes can best be described as an esoteric fantasy novel which draws from scenes and imagery mostly derived from medieval occult sources. Each chapter title is also correlated to different stages in the alchemical work. It is a reading worth while for any student of the Golden Dawn or of Hermeticism.SR

her magical works..

more to follow...