The Manchester Art Gallery celebrates women artists and Surrealism

Dora Maar

Angels of Anarchy: Women Artists and Surrealism
26 September 2009 – 10 January 2010
Manchester Art Gallery

The first major exhibition of women artists and Surrealism to be held in Europe, Angels of Anarchy , opens this autumn at Manchester Art Gallery. Featuring over 100 artworks by 33 women artists, the exhibition is a celebration of the crucial, but at the time not fully recognised, role that women artists have played within Surrealism.

Lee Miller - Self Portrait with Sphinxes

Paintings, prints, photographs, surreal objects and sculptures by well-known international artists including Frida Kahlo, Meret Oppenheim, Leonora Carrington and Lee Miller will be exhibited alongside works by artists less well-known in the UK, including Emila Medková, Jane Graverol, Mimi Parent, Kay Sage and Francesca Woodman. Manchester Art Gallery is the only venue for this exhibition, making it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the works of so many significant women artists displayed together, with many of the works on loan from international public and private collections.

Frida Kahlo - En frente del espejo

Frida Kahlo - Still life

Angels of Anarchy includes some of the most important, radical (and sometimes still shocking) Surrealist works produced during the 20th century by women artists from across the globe, including artists from Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Mexico, Switzerland, the UK and the USA.

Jane Graverol - L’Esprit Saint, 1965

The exhibition is an ambitious exploration of how women artists have responded to and challenged the traditionally male-dominated artistic subjects of landscape, portraiture, still-life, the domestic interior and fantasy within the Surrealist genre. Through these five themes, the show reveals how these women have developed, enriched and significantly reshaped Surrealism to create an empowering and erotic art form which speaks of their experiences as women and as artists.

To learn more: Manchester Art Gallery Mosley Street Manchester M2 3JL www.manchestergalleries.org