Eileen Agar
(1899-1991), PainterSitter in 4 portraits
Artist of 2 portraits
Born in Buenos Aires, Agar moved to London in 1909. From 1924 she went to Leon Underwood's Brook Green School of Art, whose radical approach to life-drawing attracted Henry Moore. She attended the Slade in 1922-6 and married a student, but in 1926 met her second husband, Hungarian writer Joseph Bard. In 1928 she lived in Paris with Bard and met André Breton and other Surrealists. In 1931 she financed and Bard edited The Island, a manifesto of the Underwood School. She was the only British woman part of London's International Surrealist Exhibition, 1936, showing assemblages Ceremonial Hat (1936) and Angel of Anarchy (1937). She spent summer 1937 with Picasso and Man Ray, later having an affair with Paul Nash.
Watch a film clip on the artist from the BBC Archive in the Media section below
by Eileen Agar
oil on canvas, 1927
On display in Room 31 at the National Portrait Gallery
NPG 5881
by Lee Miller
modern archival-toned gelatin silver print from original negative, 1937
NPG P1073
by Lucinda Douglas-Menzies
bromide fibre print, September 1987
NPG x29869
by Trevor Leighton
bromide print, 18 October 1988
NPG x32781
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