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" Surrealism: "
Obarski, Susan King
Herbert, James D
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Latin Dissertation
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| Language of Document
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English
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| Record Number
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906202
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TL6vk769zn
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| Main Entry
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Obarski, Susan King
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| Title & Author
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Surrealism:\ Obarski, Susan KingHerbert, James D
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| College
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UC Irvine
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| Date
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2014
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| student score
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2014
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| Abstract
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This dissertation, a presentation of institutional and personal histories, considers how the British surrealists used varied media from found objects and fashion to film, special exhibitions and events, and commercial advertising in their attempt to revolutionize British capitalist society in the nineteen thirties. With writers Herbert Read and David Gascoyne as their leading spokespersons, the British surrealists advocated a Marxist social revolution when they formed as a group in 1936. Yet, throughout the late thirties, the Marxist aims of British surrealism were often lost on patrons, and questioned by communist and conservative critics responding to the artworks. In chapter one, I suggest this was the case because the sensational and playful antics, and the highly varied and sometimes abstract surrealist art associated with the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition in London did not convey the same direct political message contained in the surrealists' written statements. To build this argument, I consider artworks produced by the group including: Eileen Agar, Gascoyne, Henry Moore, and Paul Nash. Chapter two focuses on Agar to show how the surrealists' demands for social change were based as much on advocating creative freedom and independence from established social norms, as they were on Marx's ideas about social progress. Like many of the English surrealists, Agar's bourgeois background and humanitarian commitment to a Popular Front against fascism defined the content of her art more than any statements advocating a proletarian revolution that she willingly signed. To further explore the political compromises faced by the British surrealists and their diversity of artistic styles and media to promote social change, chapter three considers two promotional films: The Birth of the Robot directed by Len Lye for Shell Mex and B.P. Oil, and Spare Time directed by Humphrey Jennings for the government run General Post Office (G.P.O.) Film Unit. To focus on the British surrealists' greatest success in raising awareness about the Spanish Civil War, chapter four appraises how Roland Penrose, E. L. T. Mesens, Read, and others brought Picasso's Guernica to England in late 1938, promoting it as a prime example of how surrealism could indeed embody political ideals.
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Herbert, James D
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UC Irvine
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