Ithell Colquhoun: Subliminal Explorations of the Occult

Ithell Colquhoun: 1906-1988

This article has been written in light of the the first major exhibition featuring the work of Ithell Colquhoun at the Tate Britain. To find out more follow this link: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/ithell-colquhoun

In 1940, the British Surrealist Group made a decision that would inadvertently illuminate one of the most fascinating artistic careers of the twentieth century. They expelled Ithell Colquhoun—not because her work lacked merit, but because she refused to treat occultism as mere aesthetic decoration. While her contemporaries cherry-picked mystical imagery for artistic effect, Colquhoun was living the questions that mysticism posed.

Fresh from London's prestigious Slade School of Fine Art in the 1930s, Colquhoun initially seemed destined for conventional artistic success. Yet the very movement that should have embraced her visionary practice ultimately rejected her unwillingness to separate art from spiritual inquiry. The Surrealists demanded she choose: art or occultism. Colquhoun's response demonstrated that such a choice was fundamentally impossible when both emerged from the same creative impulse.

Her spiritual practices were as deliberate and sophisticated as her technical methods. Joining Aleister Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis, she developed her revolutionary Tarot of Colour and invented "parsemage"—a divinatory practice involving scattering charcoal over water to discern prophetic patterns. As scholar Amy Hale clarifies, Colquhoun's automatic painting techniques weren't accidental splashes of inspiration but meticulously planned rituals. She "knew exactly what she was doing, from the color choice down to the automatic method she chose," often aligning her chosen method with one of the four elements—earth, air, fire, or water—while her color selections likely reflected her deep interest in planetary and zodiacal magic. Rather than seeking prophetic visions, she was "mostly interested in inner and outer journeys, operating on the level of the mythic and the archetypal."

Cornwall became Colquhoun's spiritual and artistic laboratory, though her relationship with the landscape transcended physical presence in remarkable ways. Contrary to assumptions about her work chronology, her most theoretically sophisticated and prominent depictions of Cornwall's megalithic sites emerged during World War II while she remained primarily London-based—before she even established her part-time studio in Lamorna Valley (1949-1959) or settled in Cornwall permanently in 1959.

The ancient stone circles dotting the landscape were far more than picturesque subjects for Ithell Colquhoun—she saw them as what she called "Fountains out of Hecate," a phrase that curiously echoes Kenneth Grant's book title "Hecate's Fountain." Through her initiation into Grant's Typhonian O.T.O. offshoot, the Nu Isis Lodge, suggesting a cross-fertilization of ideas between the two.

This mystical worldview shaped how she understood megalithic sites like Mên-an-Tol and other landscape antiquities such as holy wells. She believed these locations concentrated electromagnetic earth currents and served as potential portals to spiritual dimensions—essentially viewing them as ancient spiritual technology designed to help people experience vital forces more fully. When Colquhoun painted these sacred sites, she captured something that eluded most artists: the consciousness she believed permeated all natural forms. Through her canvases, she sought to facilitate the same divine encounters with landscape that she believed the ancient builders had intended.

Colquhoun's extensive involvement with multiple esoteric orders reflects the path of a genuine seeker rather than an eccentric dabbler. Fascinated by the occult from an early age and primarily concerned with spiritual enlightenment and union with the divine, she found her initial inspiration in W.B. Yeats, whose work sparked her love of alchemy, the Golden Dawn system, and Celtic spirituality.

While her participation in various Hermetic and Celtic spiritual groups might seem unusual for an artist, within the magical and esoteric subculture of mid-century Britain, joining multiple magical orders was entirely normal for someone with serious occult interests. Her deepest spiritual passion was reserved for the Golden Dawn system, which she believed had inspired most twentieth-century occult movements. As she makes a compelling case in her 1975 biography of MacGregor Mathers (one of the founding members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn) The Sword of Wisdom, she felt a profound connection with this spiritual current and actively sought organisations with genealogical relationships to it.

This commitment to lived spiritual experience distinguished her work fundamentally from surrealist appropriation of mystical motifs. Her automatic methods served as bridges—not just between conscious and subconscious mind as the Surrealists intended, but as pathways to contact other planes of reality entirely. These groups provided not only spiritual development but also friendship, community, and intellectual stimulation that conventional artistic circles couldn't offer.

Scholar Amy Hale identifies Colquhoun as "one of the most interesting and prolific esoteric thinkers and artists of the twentieth century," observing that "Colquhoun's time is now." The current Tate Britain exhibition "Between Two Worlds" finally provides proper institutional acknowledgment for an artist whose refusal to compartmentalise her spiritual life produced genuinely revolutionary work.

This contemporary resonance emerges from multiple cultural currents: increasing interest in women artists and women surrealists, overlapping with what Hale describes as a "booming fascination with magic." For today's witches and magical practitioners—particularly women, gender-nonconforming, and queer individuals—Colquhoun is becoming a beloved magical ancestor. Within what is often called the Western Magical Tradition, women magicians, especially queer women magicians, remain historically underrepresented.

Through Colquhoun's archives, art, and writings, we encounter rare evidence of a woman's deep and committed magical practice, offering a glimpse of "what magic as lived experience looks like." Practitioners are particularly drawn to her automatic practices involving writing and painting in altered states of consciousness, as well as her work with sacred landscapes. In challenging times when people seek "ways and methods of sensory and psychic immersion," Colquhoun's magic—while intellectually sophisticated—was also "bright, colourful and sensual." Her work provides blueprints for connection with other realms and sacred places, offering pathways to extraordinary reality for those wanting deeper spiritual experiences.

The Sword of Wisdom, drew from Golden Dawn traditions while documenting her deep connections within London's occult community. Her close relationships with key figures in esoteric circles, evidenced by her intimate knowledge of occult bookshops and their proprietors, positioned her at the centre of twentieth-century magical revival movements.

Colquhoun's relationship with Watkins Books reveals the deeper networks that sustained twentieth-century occult revival. As a regular customer, she developed close friendships with key members of the original Watkins staff, relationships that extended far beyond casual browsing. Her intimate knowledge of the shop's inner workings—including specific details about "Old John Watkins" and the particulars of his office—suggests she was part of the shop's extended spiritual family.

This connection, documented in The Sword of Wisdom, reflects her central position within Golden Dawn circles that had long found sanctuary in Watkins' alcoves. The bookshop served not merely as a repository of esoteric texts but as a meeting ground for serious practitioners. For Colquhoun, Watkins represented something vital: a space where books functioned as more than objects, where knowledge served as initiation, and where the boundaries between scholarship and spiritual practice dissolved. Her presence in the shop embodied the same integration she brought to her art—refusing to separate intellectual inquiry from lived spiritual experience. At Watkins, surrounded by the works that had shaped modern occultism, Colquhoun found a community that understood her synthesis of mystical practice and artistic creation.

Colquhoun's automatic practices, sacred landscape work, and sensual approach to magic provide blueprints for contemporary seekers wanting deeper, more immersive spiritual experiences. Her bright, colourful, and sensual magical work offers pathways to extraordinary reality, particularly relevant in challenging times when spiritual resources become essential.

She proved something vital about the relationship between art and spirituality: authentic visionary art doesn't emerge from borrowing mystical motifs but from embodying the spiritual questions they represent. Colquhoun understood that the impulse to create and the impulse toward the sacred are fundamentally identical—a revelation that continues to inspire practitioners seeking integration rather than compartmentalisation in their own spiritual and creative lives.

The conventional art world's initial inability to comprehend Colquhoun's occult synthesis reveals broader cultural assumptions about the separation of spiritual and aesthetic experience. Her career trajectory suggests that the most profound artistic innovations often emerge from refusing such artificial boundaries. In recognising Colquhoun's significance, we acknowledge not just an overlooked artist but a different way of understanding what art can be when it emerges from lived spiritual inquiry. Some artists leave behind bodies of work; others leave behind new ways of seeing. Colquhoun accomplished both, creating a legacy that continues to inspire those who understand that the deepest creative work often happens at the intersection of the material and the mystical; a Magician and an Artist.

In Conversation with Amy Hale: Leading Scholar on Ithell Colquhoun

We were fortunate to interview Amy Hale, one of the leading scholars on the life of Colquhoun, to gain deeper insights into her work and contemporary relevance.

In your research on Colquhoun's divinatory practices, how do you interpret her belief that she could see prophetic visions in spilled paint? What was her methodology for transforming these accidental paint splatters into what she considered genuine prophecy?

I am not sure that Colquhoun would characterise her use of automatic methods as strictly prophetic. I don't think she was trying to divine the future or even necessarily trying to understand the present. She was mostly interested in inner and outer journeys, operating on the level of the mythic and the archetypal. Also, the way in which she handled paint was not accidental, it was really quite deliberate. She knew exactly what she was doing, from the colour choice down to the automatic method she chose. Often the method that she chose would be aligned to one of the elements, earth, air, fire or water, but she also had a real interest in planetary and zodiacal magic so it's very likely that these interests may have supported her colour choices as well. Automatic methods were established surrealist practices initially designed to help bridge the subconscious and the conscious parts of the mind. Colquhoun certainly used automatic methods to help unlock parts of her subconscious, but also very likely to contact other planes of reality.

Colquhoun's involvement with multiple esoteric orders—from the Golden Dawn to various Druidical societies—was unusually extensive for an artist of her era. In your scholarship, what do you identify as the primary factors that drew her so deeply into these secretive occult worlds?

Being involved in a variety of magical orders may have been unusual for artists at the time, but within the magical and esoteric subculture of mid-century Britain, and even now, joining a variety of magical orders would not have been considered unusual for someone with occult interests. Colquhoun had been fascinated by the occult from a very early age, and she was primarily concerned with spiritual enlightenment, and union with the divine. Her primary inspiration was probably the work of WB Yeats who inspired her initial love of alchemy, the Golden Dawn system, and probably her fascinations with Celtic spirituality. I feel that her deepest occult passion was reserved for the Golden Dawn system, which she felt was the organisation that inspired the development of most other 20th century occult groups, and while I'm not sure this was entirely accurate she does make a pretty good case for her own interpretation of this lineage in her 1975 book Sword of Wisdom. Colquhoun felt as though she had a deep connection with the spiritual current of that order, so she tried to join organisations that she felt had some sort of genealogical relationship to it. Colquhoun was a lifelong seeker, and as occult orders changed, developed and emerged, she would frequently investigate groups where she already had friends, and that fit her evolving spiritual interests. In general groups that focused on Hermetic material such as alchemy and the Kabbalah were of interest to her, but she also joined several groups centred on Celtic spirituality, which she believed she was connected to through ancestry. Not only did these groups help support her spiritual development, but they provided friendship, community and intellectual stimulation.

Following her permanent relocation to Cornwall, Colquhoun's artistic output increasingly depicted megalithic sites as literal dimensional portals. Based on your analysis of her Cornwall period, what do you believe she was experiencing or perceiving at these ancient sacred sites?

I think your chronology in this question is a bit incorrect. Interestingly, Colquhoun's most prominent and theoretically interesting depictions of Cornwall's megalithic sites were from the years during World War II while she was primarily based in London and before she started living in Cornwall in any capacity. She rented a studio in Lamorna valley which she inhabited only part time from 1949 to 1959, only settling in Cornwall full time in 1959. I think Colquhoun believed that these megalithic sites, in addition to other sorts of landscape antiquities such as holy wells, were spaces where electromagnetic currents under the earth were concentrated, and that they may have been portals to spiritual dimensions. She referred to these sites as "Fountains out of Hecate" and held that ancient peoples built these as a sort of spiritual technology, enabling people to experience these energies most fully. Colquhoun believed that our bodies and the earth could contain and transmit vital forces, and these practices could lead to divine encounters.

Your work has positioned Colquhoun as a precursor to contemporary occult feminism, particularly through her goddess-centred imagery and sacred sexuality themes. From your perspective as both a Colquhoun scholar and observer of modern esoteric movements, why has her magical artistic practice resonated so powerfully with today's witches and mystics?

I definitely believe that Colquhoun's time is now, for a variety of reasons. In terms of the wider cultural context for the new relevance of her work, there is the increasing interest in the history of women artists, and also women surrealists both, of which are overlapping with a booming fascination with magic. For today's witches and magical practitioners, particularly women, gender nonconforming, and queer folks, Colquhoun is quickly becoming a beloved magical ancestor. With the exception of Wicca, in what is frequently called the Western Magical Tradition, women magicians, especially queer women magicians are historically underrepresented. Through Colquhoun's archives, art and writings we have the rare evidence of a woman's deep and committed magical practice. We get to see what magic as lived experience looks like, and it's quite incredible! I think people are also very compelled by her interest in sacred landscapes, and also her automatic practices which involved writing and painting or drawing in altered states of consciousness. I think right now in these challenging times, people are seeking out ways and methods of sensory and psychic immersion. People want deeper experiences, and Colquhoun's magic, while very intellectually driven in some ways, was also bright, colourful and sensual. Her work offers a blueprint for connection with other realms and sacred places, and those features are resonating with people who want to experience an extraordinary reality.

Watkins, holds an extensive collection of Colquhoun's works available for purchase across the store, be sure to come and pay us a visit in store, or order via our web shop: https://shop.watkinsbooks.com/collections/bestsellers/