Sites of Discovery: Ben Hunter on Ithell Colquhoun
The London gallerist on an ambiguous early painting on show at Frieze Masters by the artist usually associated with surrealism
The London gallerist on an ambiguous early painting on show at Frieze Masters by the artist usually associated with surrealism
‘Sites of Discovery’ gathers stories of first encounters with treasured artworks and artists by exhibitors at Frieze Masters.
Ben Hunter I first came across Demeter and Persephone (1928) in a friend’s collection. At the time, I was buying and selling works by Ithell Colquhoun (1906–88), and this was one of the earliest I had seen by her. I knew her surrealist work, but this painting knocked me right between the eyes. If I walked into an artist’s studio today and saw this picture, I’d think it was a compelling work of art. Painted during Colquhoun’s time in London in the late 1920s, the piece prefigures her surrealist tendencies of the following decades and was included in her landmark show, ‘Ithell Colquhoun: Between Worlds’, at Tate St Ives earlier this year. The canvas depicts two women locked in an embrace that is slightly unclear but which doesn’t feel like that of a mother and daughter.
There has been a lot of scholarship about Colquhoun’s sexuality and queerness of late, but she never really articulated it in her lifetime. Yet she imbues this work with such ambiguity: an intimacy that complicates conventional mythological readings and hints at a nuanced understanding of gender and identity. And her inventiveness – not nailing her colours to the mast – reveals an independent spirit that would mark her whole career.
Colquhoun reveals her unique position: receptive rather than subversive, attuned to hidden energies.
The painting’s warm, economical handling of paint suggests deep technical confidence, while its animate landscape – a tree that seems almost to lean into the figures – introduces her lifelong fascination with a sentient, spiritual nature. Colquhoun would go on to work in surrealist circles in Paris, but departed from the group to explore the occult and various esoteric philosophies. Yet even here, in this early exercise, she reveals her unique position: receptive rather than subversive, attuned to hidden energies. You could easily read this as a self-portrait – Colquhoun, bob haircut and all, sitting on another woman’s lap – but we simply don’t know. And that is the magic of this piece: she never reveals too much, leaving us to wonder.
Ben Hunter (Stand B5) includes Ithell Colquhoun in its presentation at Frieze Masters 2025.
This article first appeared in Frieze Masters magazine 2025 under the title ‘Sites of Discovery: Ben Hunter on Ithell Colquhoun’.
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Main image: Ithell Colquhoun, Demeter and Persephone (detail), 1928. Oil on canvas laid on board, 29 × 27 cm. Courtesy: Ben Hunter, London. Photograph: Jack Elliot Edwards
