A Tale of Mother’s Bones

Psychorealist paintings & drawings

Showing across both sites, Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange.

GRACE PAILTHORPE, REUBEN MEDNIKOFF AND THE BIRTH OF PSYCHOREALISM

An exhibition of paintings and drawings paired with in-depth psychoanalytic interpretation, A Tale of Mother’s Bones tells the remarkable story of a unique artistic and personal collaboration between Dr Grace Pailthorpe (1883–1971), a trained surgeon, and Reuben Mednikoff (1906–1972), an artist and designer. Pailthorpe and Mednikoff met at a party in London in 1935, and moved to Port Isaac in Cornwall where they made some of their most wildly experimental artworks

Showing across both our venues, this is the first exhibition to bring together Pailthorpe and Mednikoff’s extraordinary drawings and paintings, alongside their often challenging interpretations. Featuring more than 60 works spanning nearly four decades, this show examines their earliest experiments with Surrealist processes, their response to the rise of Fascism in interwar Europe, and the way in which they approached gender, relationships, psychology and spirituality, from progressive and often radical positions.

A Tale of Mother’s Bone is curated by Hope Wolf (University of Sussex), with the De La Warr Pavilion and Camden Arts Centre.