A lobster phone, lips phone, turtle wallpaper, and a trail of wet footprints…
Explore your inner Surrealist at West Dean
Highlights of the tour include Salvador Dalí’s Mae West Lips Sofa and Lobster Telephone.
A lobster phone, lips sofa, turtle wallpaper and a trail of wet footprints…
West Dean College for the first time opens it’s collection & archive for public tours to mark the centenary of surrealism.
To mark the centenary of Surrealism this month, West Dean College will for the first time open its collection of iconic Surrealist artworks and objects to the public through monthly tours starting on 29 October 2024.
West Dean College, the world-renowned college of arts, design, craft and conservation, was founded by Edward James (1907 – 1984), a patron of the Surrealist Movement. In 1964 Edward James bequeathed his family estate to become a centre for education and training in conservation and craft practices that he feared might be lost to humanity.
Famously, James collaborated with the Surrealists Salvador Dalí and René Magritte and was a friend and patron of many other leading Surrealist artists including Leonora Carrington and Leonor Fini. James assembled one of the earliest and most significant collections of Surrealist art, and was a highly influential figure in the story of Surrealism.
Now, for the first time, to mark the centenary of the Surrealist Movement in October, the public will be able to see some of the most iconic works in the West Dean Collection that resulted from James’ patronage and creative partnerships. Starting on the 29th of October 2024, the monthly tours will take visitors behind the scenes of James’ former family home, nestled in the idyllic environs of the South Downs in West Sussex.
The tours will explore the life and work of Edward James through a number of iconic Surrealist artworks, furniture, interior design pieces, and fascinating archive material. This will be a rare opportunity to view paintings, drawings and sketches by leading Surrealists including Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Leonora Carrington, Leonor Fini and Jean Cocteau.
Alongside his patronage, James was a surrealist creator in his own right, his artistic pursuits ranging from interior design and architecture to poetry and writing. He formed many creative partnerships, most notably with Salvador Dalí which led to the creation of the iconic Mae West Lips Sofa and Lobster Telephone, as well as the Champagne Lamps and Cat’s Cradle Hand Chair. Originally designed either for Monkton House, a former Lutyens-designed residence on the West Dean estate, or James’ London house at 35 Wimpole Street, these unique creations are now on display at West Dean College.
Visitors will also be able to see the famous Tilly Losch Footprint Carpet conceived by Edward James, which depicts the trail of wet footprints left by his wife, Tilly Losch, when she left the bathroom. James and Losch, an Austrian-born ballerina, were married in 1931 but divorced in 1934 after a turbulent marriage. The carpet was installed in the spiral staircase at West Dean House c.1970, together with the extraordinary Turtle Wallpaper.
The tours take visitors behind the scenes of Edward James’ former home, now one of the main college buildings. One of the highlights is the spiral staircase, comprising the Tilly Losch Footprint Carpet and Turtle Wallpaper.
The West Dean Archive comprises a wealth of fascinating material shedding light not only on James’ friendships and creative partnerships with the leading Surrealists of his time, but also on the Surrealist Movement more broadly in this centenary year. Highlights of the tour include:
- Part of the only surviving text of Salvador Dalí’s seminal lecture at the International Surrealist Exhibition in London in July 1936, which introduced Surrealism to the UK
- Correspondence between James and the Surrealists including illustrated letters by Salvador Dalí, René Magritte and Leonora Carrington, as well as sketches by these artists and others
- A letter by James describing the meeting between himself, Dalí and Sigmund Freud, whose theory of the unconscious influenced Dalí’s ‘Paranoiac-critical’ creative method
- A sketch of the Mae West Lips Sofa on the back of an envelope, attributed to Edward Carrick, who was part of the design team to realise the piece of furniture jointly conceived by Edward James and Salvador Dalí
- Edward James’ Surrealist architectural plans: James conceived some extraordinary unrealised buildings for the West Dean estate, including a pavilion named ‘Artichoke House’ to house some of his paintings and a proposed reconstruction of the Georgian facade of the ‘Pantheon’, a Wyatt-designed building in London’s Oxford Street.
Hugh Morrison, Collections Manager at West Dean College, said: “We are delighted to make West Dean College’s significant Collection and Archive more accessible to the public through tours that will provide insights into the life and work of Edward James. Not only was James one of the most influential patrons of the Surrealist Movement, but a surrealist creator in his own right, his output extending over a range of different fields, most notably interior design, fantastical architecture and writing. By founding West Dean College, he left a living and permanent legacy to the practice and teaching of the arts, ensuring future generations could experience the magic of making and, like the Surrealists, unleash their imagination to create the unexpected and unconventional.”
Explore your inner Surrealist at West Dean London
For those wanting to create their own Surrealist-inspired artworks and objects, West Dean’s London campus will offer two unique creative short courses in the heart of Bloomsbury.
Surreal Automata (26 October 2024 and 12-15 January 2025) invites creatives of all ages to build one or more working automata – animated surreal designs driven by a crank mechanism to hand-power moving parts. Working with lightweight art and craft materials, these could be collaged adaptations of famous Surrealist paintings or your own Surrealist-style weirdness.
Surrealism in Textiles (12-13 October 2024 and 13-14 February 2025) will play with form, composition and fabric to create dreamlike scenes inspired by ‘La Pozas’ Sculpture Garden, a surrealistic group of structures created by Edward James, more than 2,000 feet above sea level, in a subtropical rainforest in the Sierra Gorda mountains of Mexico.
Surreal Automata and Surreal in Textiles at West Dean London
The two courses are part of the autumn term of inspiring short courses in arts and crafts at West Dean London, which opened its doors to students and creatives in April this year, bringing West Dean West Sussex’ signature programme to the capital city. Taught by experts in their fields, the courses encourage fresh approaches that are sustainable and promote a sense of wellbeing, rooted in West Dean’s founding belief that ‘making makes lives better’.
For further information on how to book onto the West Dean Surrealism tours, or one of the Surrealist courses, please see HERE.