Artist 101

1. Dora Maar (1909-1997)

Dora Maar, born Henriette Theodora Markovitch in Paris, was raised between Argentina and France. Although famously the partner of Pablo Picasso, and the subject of a number of his paintings, she was a celebrated icon of Surrealism in her own right, blazing a trail with socially and politically- charged photomontages, paintings and poetry. After studies at École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian in Paris, she began a successful career in commercial photography. Alongside, Maar featured in major Surrealist exhibitions and made waves with disarming work that merged fantasy and fiction and transformed everyday scenes into magic, as evident in Composition au pied de la fenêtre (circa 1930). Influenced by the leftist politics of the time, Maar took her Rolleiflex camera to European city streets to document the harsh conditions of poverty-stricken communities during the Great Depression. Maar was also a gifted painter, which went largely unrecognised until a posthumous sale of her work in 1999. It was a discipline in which she excelled – particularly following her separation from Picasso and his dominant influence on her work – and would devote the latter years of her life to. In contemporary times – notably in a major travelling retrospective in 2019 – Maar has come to be celebrated as far more than Picasso’s Weeping Woman, and as a pivotal figure in the trajectory of Surrealism.

2. Jane Graverol (1905-1984)

Jane Graverol, the daughter of symbolist painter Alexandre Graverol, was born in Ixelles, Belgium in 1905. She enrolled at the Brussels Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in 1921 and began exhibiting work in 1927. Although this was before the movement had taken off, her paintings foreshadowed the traits of Surrealism and Graverol became closely linked to the emergence of the movement in Belgium, which formed around René Magritte, who organised an exhibition of her work in 1950. Her poetic compositions were rendered in a meticulous precision and centred on the female experience, which was at once sensual, grotesque and empowered, and often combined everyday objects with supernatural forces. Le trait de lumière (1959), in which the negative space of a canyon outlines a faceless female body against a blood-orange sunset, creates tensions between the inner and outer self, the spiritual and corporeal, consciousness and dreams. As the popularity of Surrealism waned towards the latter half of the 20th century, Graverol turned her attention towards the ensuing war, and later to works focusing on flora and fauna.

Read more: World records for women artists at Bonhams Surrealist sale in Paris

3. Marie-Berthe Aurenche (1906-1960)

Born in 1906, French painter Marie-Berthe Aurenche was the sister of leading screenwriter Jean Aurenche. In 1927, she met leading Surrealist Max Ernst, and the two married almost at once. Aurenche soon became immersed in Surrealist circles, which included Man Ray, Lee Miller and André Breton, but her work has long been overlooked in the canon of Surrealist history. In La Révolution Surréaliste on 29 March, Bonhams will auction Portrait d'André Breton (1930), a rare joint work by the pair. The sun-soaked Mediterranean scene, which blends both of the artists’ styles, sees Breton sitting leisurely at a table while a nude woman engages with a bird-fish creature behind and is imbued with Aurenche’s deft atmospheric approach. Despite being signed 'Marie Berthe Max Ernst', the painting has a long history of misattribution: first in the 1933 exhibition at Galerie Pierre Colle where Aurenche was credited as its sole creator, and later in the catalogue for the 2004 exhibition in La Coruña, where it is attributed solely to Ernst. Aurenche and Ernst divorced in 1936, after which she became the mistress of French painter Chaïm Soutine.

Read more: Artist 101 | Max Ernst

4. Valentine Hugo (1887-1968)

French artist and writer Valentine Hugo is best known for her work with the Russian Ballet and the French Surrealists. Following studies at Paris’ École des Beaux-Arts in 1908, she designed costumes and sets for opera and theatre. In 1914, she met Jean Cocteau and collaborated on the ballet Parade. It was through Cocteau that she met Jean Hugo – Victor Hugo’s great-grandson – who she married in 1919. Her initial interest was in Dadaism, but André Breton, with whom she would later have an explosive relationship, swayed Hugo towards Surrealism. She frequently exhibited with the group, illustrated Surrealist texts and partook in Cadavre exquis (exquisite corpse) exercises. Her startling portraiture was often rendered in gouache, pastel illustrations, oil or mix-media collages. Despite her contribution to Surrealism, Hugo’s oeuvre is small and rarely at auction, with the majority of her works held in private collections including the MoMA. Rarer still are those created during the height of Paris Surrealism. Portrait d’Arthur Rimbaud, sold at Bonhams for £1,042,750 inc. premium in March 2022, was painted shortly after the end of her affair with Breton. As Hugo told Breton in 1933, the idea for the portrait came to her like a dream.  

5. Rachel Baes (1912-1985)

Belgian Surrealist painter Rachel Baes was born in Brussels in 1912. Despite a challenging relationship with her father – the landscape painter and portraitist Émile Baes – her parents championed her creative aspirations from a young age. She never studied art formally, but Baes was an early bloomer on the art scene, where she began experimenting with still lifes. In 1929, aged just 17, she exhibited in Paris’ Salon des Indépendants and was soon lured towards the emergent force of Surrealism. In the 1940s and 50s, she began associating with figures at the nucleus of the movement, including René Magritte, Jean Cocteau, Paul Léautaud and André Breton. Her best-known work depicts women, not as muses, but as protagonists of their own dream-like narratives, often staged within stark, eerily lit, grey interiors and landscapes. A key example is seen in the oil painting Œdipe et le sphynx , an apparent homage to Gustave Moreau’s painting of the same name. In Baes’ interpretation of the Greek myth, Oedipus confronts the malevolent sphinx, clad in blazing green wings. Baes died in 1985 in Bruges, and it was only in the latter half of the 20th century, with the swell of the women's movement, that she achieved a due recognition that continues today.

6. Grace Pailthorpe (1883-1971)

Grace Pailthorpe is one of the most intriguing artists of Surrealism. Born in Sussex, she was the only daughter of ten children brought up in a strict religious sect. Her early career was in medicine, working as a respected surgeon at military hospitals internationally during World War I. Following extensive travels, she returned to England and turned to psychology and Freudian analysis, specifically juvenile delinquency. In 1935, she met Reuben Mednikoff, with whom she would enjoy a long and intense creative partnership fusing art with psychology. Together, they contributed to the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition at London’s New Burlington Galleries. Though their work received praise from Surrealism co-founder, André Breton, they were expelled from the British Surrealist Group in 1940. Pailthorpe’s deeply symbolic work features organic and anatomical shapes – fleshy vines, void-like orifices, beady eyes and allusions to birth – rendered in a palette both vivid and pallid. Unlike other Surrealists, she emphasised the therapeutic value of her work, which was often accompanied by annotation.

7. Léonor Fini (1907-1996)

Born in Buenos Aires in 1907 to Italian and Argentine parents, Leonor Fini grew up in Trieste, Italy. Her art education was largely self-directed, honing her eye for anatomy at the local morgue in her early teens. She moved to Paris in 1931 where she was welcomed into Surrealist circles. Ahead of her time, she reversed gender norms, questioning both societal conventions and those defined by her male contemporaries. Though Fini never failed to surprise with eccentric charms, beauty and gregarious personality, there were recurring motifs in her work including powerful female forms, theatrical fashion, surreal twists on the still life and most notably, the figure of the Sphinx. In March 2021, Sphinx Ariene sold at Bonhams for an impressive £100,250 inc. premium. Despite featuring in many Surrealist group exhibitions, it was only 2019 when Fini posthumously received her first American museum survey, and her work has since stepped even further into the spotlight.

8. Eileen Agar (1899-1991)

British-Argentinian artist Eileen Agar remains one of the most pivotal forces in Surrealism. During her childhood in Buenos Aires and at school in England, Agar was captivated by creativity, immersing herself in the work of Edmund Dulac, Arthur Rackham and Paul Nash, with whom she would later have an intense creative and romantic relationship. After studying art in London, Agar moved to Paris in 1928, where she met André Breton and Paul Éluard. She painted her first Surrealist work in 1930, based on Breton's Surrealist manifesto. In 1936, she was one of the few women to take part in the International Surrealist Exhibition in London; she became a key figure in the British arm of the movement, yet was largely removed from its political aspirations. Painting would form only one part of Agar’s extensive and multifaceted oeuvre, which spanned assemblages, found materials, automatic techniques, collage, photography and even ceremonial hats. Sans titre (1948) is a key example of Agar’s experimental approach, in which the frame itself becomes a key component of the work. Agar’s work has seen a resurgence of interest in recent years, notably in the major 2021 retrospective Eileen Agar: Angel of Anarchy at London’s Whitechapel Gallery.

9. Dorothea Tanning (1910-2012)

Over a seven-decade career, American artist and writer Dorothea Tanning deftly blended the surreal and real to uncanny effect. Born in Galesburg, Illinois, she first encountered Surrealism in New York in the 1930s; the MoMA show Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism had a particularly potent effect on the young artist. In 1942, she met Max Ernst – then married to Peggy Guggenheim – and the pair wed in 1946. Though she frequently fused the familiar with the strange and explored themes of desire and sexuality, Tanning’s style was ever-evolving. After 1955, her painting eschewed the precise figurative dreamscapes for which she was best known and ventured into more confident gestures that verged on abstraction. This is evident in Untitled, sold by Bonhams for £16,500 inc. premium in 2021. In the 1960s, her evolution continued into sculpture, predominantly created in fabric and found objects. In 2019, a seminal retrospective at the Tate Modern cemented Tanning as one of the greats of 20th century Surrealism.

10. Leonora Carrington (1917-2011)

British artist and novelist Leonora Carrington was born into an affluent Irish-Catholic family. Encouraged to become a debutante, she rebelled against repressive familial expectations and pursued creativity. At art school in London, she was exposed to the curiosities of avant-garde art and Surrealism. In 1937, she met Max Ernst. The pair fell in love and moved to France where they immersed themselves in collaborative surrealist pursuits. When their relationship ended, Carrington suffered a major psychotic breakdown and was institutionalised. In 1942, she moved to Mexico surrounded by a group of expatriate Surrealists. She thrived, developing a universe of animal-human hybridity, and constructed a world in which women were not objects of male desire, but empowered matriarchs. One of the most recognisable figures in Surrealism – and later the women's liberation movement in Mexico during the 1970s – Carrington’s market continues to burgeon. In March 2021, Bonhams sold Operation Wednesday for a notable £682,750 inc. premium, one of the top five results for the artist to date.

Looking to sell your artwork or collection?

Submit it online for a free auction estimate.