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Eileen Agar was born in Buenos Aires in 1899 into
a decadent world of house parties and balls. She was educated in England,
and rapidly decided to pursue a career as an artist despite parental
disapproval. She studied at the Slade from 1921 to 1924, alongside fellow
students Oliver Messel, Cecil Beaton and Rex Whistler, then to break
with her family with no means of support. It was not until 1936 that
Agar shot to fame at the first International Surrealist Exhibition in
London. Agar thereafter developed friendships with such luminaries as
Ezra Pound, Picasso, Henry Moore and Paul Nash. She became a leading
figure in British art, and is celebrated especially for her brightly-coloured
collages.
This life drawing of a man sifting the grains
of sand of time comes from Agar's time as an art student at the Slade.
She studied with the ‘formidable' Henry Tonks, and recalls being ‘set
to work drawing male and female models as well as copying classical
busts' with Tonks ‘peering over [her] shoulder'. Tonks congratulated
her on a particular head, calling Walter Russell over to have a look.
‘Students gathered round and congratulated me'. Another of Agar's
teachers at the Slade was Wilson Steer, whom she recalls ‘ambling
into the life class … saying a few words and ambling out again.' Agar,
A Look at my Life (1988), pp. 43-4. She ever after respected
the Slade's ‘old-fashioned but valuable teaching.' This particular
study is remarkable for its warmth and its honest detail demonstrating
Agar's draughtsmanship. It attests to the enduring power of classical
training and highlights the skills of one of the best-known decorative
Surrealist painters of the twentieth century.
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