The Colour of Dreams - ACE177.2

VO Eileen Agar talking over photograph of herself about taking a cork basket, and then realising she could decorate it. Newsreel (c.1936) shows this object as the "creation of surrealist artist Eileen Agar" as she wears what she calls a Ceremonial Hat for Eating Bouillabaisse in the street. Commentary suggests that Agar has not always been taken seriously, though she’s now recognised as one of the leading British Surrealists. Agar posed wearing a decorated bark hat. A photograph of her with painting dissolves to shot of her standing beside the painting. Caption quotes Paul Eluard as saying "Eileen Agar who brings the colour of dreams to everything she sees…" Agar VO over some of her paintings, and Agar saying that good painting must be filled with warm feeling. Agar working on a collage and talking about finally being able to live off the proceeds of her work. Agar with photograph album, looking at photographs of her childhood in Argentina, the ship that took them home, to England, photographs of the voyage, etc., illustrated with sketches and ornate captions. Agar talking about going to the Slade despite family objections. Photographs of Agar in teens and early twenties. Agar and VO on her "traditional training" in representational art ("Tonks … [thought all] modern fads like Impressionism [were] rubbish".) Sketches and paintings. Commentary talks about her move to Paris. Self-portrait (1927) "shows the tension between her traditional training and the need to express a modern sensibility". Agar: "being a Cubist was too restraining…"; she wanted greater freedom. Four paintings. Agar VO on "a very early one, one painted in very thin oil", Madonna of the Cat’s Cradle, influenced by Picasso "feeling my way towards a Surrealist way of looking at things".