Grace Pailthorpe (1883–1971) was a pioneering British surrealist artist, surgeon, psychoanalyst and criminologist. She qualified as a doctor in 1914 and served as a surgeon during the First World War, later developing a deep interest in psychoanalysis and the unconscious. In 1935 she began a collaboration with the artist Reuben Mednikoff, researching the relationship between psychology and art through automatic drawing and painting. Their work was exhibited at the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition in London and praised by André Breton. Pailthorpe believed that Surrealism and psychoanalysis offered pathways to personal liberation and creative freedom, and her experiments in automatism sought to demonstrate the universal capacity for unconscious expression. Increasingly recognised for her contribution to the history of automatism, her work is now held by Tate.

EXHIBITION: ONE EYE SEES, THE OTHER FEELS