Essays on the art and writings of the long-neglected British occultist and Surrealist 
Straddling the worlds of Surrealism, occultism and modernist literature, Ithell Colquhoun (1906–88) was widely respected in her lifetime, but her transgressive, esoteric and poetic paintings and writings were long neglected until Richard Shillitoe's 2009 book Ithell Colquhoun: Magician Born of Nature initiated her revaluation―followed by Fulgur’s 2016 publication Decad of Intelligence, the Tate’s 2019 acquisition of more than 5,000 Colquhoun works and Amy Hale’s 2020 biography. Colquhoun occupies a unique place within the lineage of occult Surrealist painters such as Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo, as her presence in the 2022 Venice Biennale exhibition Milk of Dreams demonstrated. 
This volume is the first critical examination of her diverse legacy, compiling papers from a 2018 conference on Colquhoun and her contemporaries Leonora Carrington, Leonor Fini and Stella Snead. Contributors explore themes of authorship and agency, Colquhoun’s drawing practice, her Celtic motifs, British Surrealism and alchemy.

The Dance of Moon and Sun: Ithell Colquhoun, British Women and Surrealism: Dance of Moon and Sun: Ithell Colquhoun, British Women and Surrealism

Arts & Photography

Individual Artists

FULGUR PRESS

A sweeping panorama of images of women in alchemical manuscripts, early printed books, prints and paintingsThe images of women compiled in this pioneering volume evolved from alchemical philosophy, in which gendered and sexualized concepts are used to describe physical matter and laboratory processes. When alchemical imagery arose in the late Middle Ages, and over the next three centuries, images of women developed in ways that reflected wider social pressures. Building on scholarly studies of the increasing exclusion of women from public arenas in the early modern period, The Alchemical Feminine examines the transformations of alchemical images of women and the increasing masculinization of earlier feminine imagery. When alchemy returned to the Latin West, metals were thought to be composed of hot, dry, fixed Philosophic Sulphur and cool, moist, volatile Philosophic Mercury. In the laboratory, these lovers fused in a "Chemical Wedding" that produced their child, the "Philosophers' Stone," a mysterious catalyst enabling the transformation of base metals into silver and gold. As alchemical imagery developed, women appeared as ancient philosophers, religious figures, royal queens, sexual partners, cosmological personifications, deities, allegorical symbols of Nature and the wives of fools. Herbal alchemy also had ancient roots and it is in this realm that women as alchemical practitioners can be found. Using abundant illustrations, this book examines the alchemical feminine and the thematic diversity of alchemical images of women.

The Alchemical Feminine: Women, Gender and Sexuality in Alchemical Images

History & Criticism

Penny Slinger: An Exorcism: A Photo Romance

Photography & Video

Magic Art

BRETON, André

Taro as Colour

Ithell Colquhoun

In A Book of Staves, New York–based artist Jesse Bransford (born 1972) offers a series of delicate drawings that find inspiration in the wild landscapes, folk magic and medieval poetic texts of Iceland. Here, we find the old spoken spells of the Hávamál rendered as image, the traditional “staves” of low Icelandic magic. Titles such as Make an Enemy Fear You and To Trap Shape-Shifted Witches speak of a culture where danger and the unknown were close at hand. Born from a major collaborative project in 2014, many of these spells were conceived and developed during Bransford’s visits to Iceland. As visual expressions of the Poetic Edda and runic lore, these images represent an original contemporary interpretation of the traditional Icelandic magical heritage. Bransford’s work is punctuated with excerpts from Carolyne Larrington’s lauded translation of the Hávamál, prefaced with a statement from the artist and augmented with an introduction from Robert J. Wallis. The texts are offered in both English and Icelandic.

Jesse Bransford: A Book of Staves

When the occult came to the American West: individualism and magic in the art of California, from Agnes Pelton to Jess
“It is in America that the transformation will take place, and has already silently commenced.” With these words, written in The Secret Doctrine in 1888, occultist philosopher Helena Blavatsky drew a direct connection between the Theosophical Society and the dynamic energy of 19th-century Americanism. Blavatsky and her successors identified the American West as the perfect site for a rebirth and re-enchantment of humanity, drawing those seeking spiritual fulfilment outside of organized religion to the dramatic landscapes of California, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico―places which have long beckoned searchers of all kinds. The syncretic nature of Theosophy allowed for and even encouraged individualism in belief, making Theosophy a good fit for the notions of freedom and personal agency that characterized the American West in the popular imaginary. Among those drawn to the American West seeking spiritual answers in the early 20th century were artists. In 2014, the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum at Utah State University staged the first exhibition to explore artistic responses to this confluence of enchanted thought and the American West. Building on this precedent, Enchanted Modernities: Theosophy, the Arts and the American West is the first publication devoted to studying these relationships in art and music. Through a series of color plates, contextual essays, interviews and interpretations of individual works by artists such as the Dynaton group (Wolfgang Paalen, Gordon Onslow Ford, Lee Mullican), Oskar Fischinger, Emil Bisttram, Lawren Harris, Raymond Jonson, Agnes Pelton, Wolfgang Paalen, Beatrice Wood, Dane Rudhyar and Jess, Enchanted Modernities explores the role of Theosophical thought in redefining the relationship between enchantment and modernism, and fostering lively cultural networks in a region that that has long captured the world’s imagination.

Enchanted Modernities: Theosophy, the Arts and the American West

Turner, Sarah Victoria

Intersections of esotericism and visual art from Renaissance alchemy to Derek Jarman Since Antiquity, the idea of the artist as a magician, trickster and powerful creator of new realities has established itself as a fertile idea in the discussion of image-making. The conjuring of illusions, the inherent link between the material and the spiritual, and the wish to make the invisible visible are all part of this wider discourse. Visions of Enchantment looks at the fascinating intersections between esotericism and visual culture through a decidedly cross-cultural lens, with topics ranging from talismanic magic and the Renaissance exploration of alchemy, through to the role of magic in modern art and 20th-century experimental film. The essays in this volume have been selected from papers presented at a major international conference at the University of Cambridge in 2014. It presents work by some of the leading scholars in Western Esotericism, including Antoine Faivre, M.E. Warlick and Deanna Petherbridge. Visions of Enchantment attests to the vibrant role that magic and the occult play in cutting-edge research across a wide variety of the arts and humanities today.

Visions of Enchantment: Occultism, Magic and Visual Culture: Select Papers from the University of Cambridge Conference

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

A full-color facsimile of an 18th-century black-magic compendium
Touch Me Not is an Austrian manuscript compendium of the black magical arts, completed c. 1795. Unique and otherworldly, it evokes a realm of visceral dark magic. As the co-editor of this volume Hereward Tilton notes, the manuscript “appears at first sight to be a ‘grimoire’ or magician’s manual intended for noviciates of black magic. Psychedelic drug use, animal sacrifice, sigillary body art, masturbation fantasy and the necromantic manipulation of gallows-corpses count among the transgressive procedures it depicts. With their aid hidden treasures are wrested from guardian spirits, and the black magician’s highest ambition―an infernal transfiguration and union with the Devil―can be fulfilled.” Hidden for decades within the Wellcome Library collection, Touch Me Not is published here as a full-color facsimile. The German and Latin texts have been translated by Hereward Tilton and Merlin Cox, scholars who have explored the sources for the various elements and provided copious references. Tilton provides an introduction that lays out the context for the survival of this extraordinary manuscript."

Touch Me Not: A Most Rare Compendium of the Whole Magical Art

Black Mirror is a peer-reviewed series that seeks to examine ways in which the occult and the esoteric have been at the heart of art practice, both today and throughout the modernist period.Black Mirror 2: Elsewhere looks at questions concerning other planes and other realities. It includes essays on the work of Kurt Seligmann, Leon Engers, Fiona Pardington and Joaquim Vilela, as well as writing on the intersection of occult thought with contemporary fashion, architecture and art.Black Mirror is edited and produced by an international group of artists and researchers working out of New York University Steinhardt, Arts University Bournemouth (UK) and Plymouth College of Art (UK). It is planned as a series of 12 volumes, each of which explores specific themes.

Black Mirror 2: Elsewhere

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