The latest exhibition at London’s Courtauld Gallery, open from June 16 until September 11, unearths the fascinating story of long-forgotten British artist Georgiana Houghton (1814-1884). She was a Victorian spiritualist who claimed to be channeling the spirits of artists like Titian and Thomas Lawrence to create strange, proto-abstract paintings.In “Georgiana Houghton: Spirit Drawings,” the Courtauld brings together many of her works in London for the first time since the artist self-funded an exhibition in 1871, nearly bankrupting herself in the process. These swirly, psychedelic, abstract watercolors were created by Houghton as part of her practice as a spirit medium during the spiritualism craze of the mid-19th century. Often working without looking at the page, she explains her process in depth on the back of the paintings: how she felt she was channeling family members, famous artists or religious figures like saints and the Holy Trinity itself while producing these “spirit drawings.”In the exhibition, the gallery displays three of these paintings such that both sides can be seen, showing Houghton's own explanations for these nearly abstract works — which predate even the earliest abstract artists by decades.Although the exhibition considers her a part of this timeline of abstract art, Houghton viewed herself as a representational artist, trying her best to paint what she called “the hidden mysteries beyond the veil.” As such, the exhibition also places her as a precursor to the Surrealists, whose adventures in automatic drawing and writing mirror Houghton’s process, albeit replacing the Victorian idea of a spirit realm with the exploration of the subconscious and dreams. Through this exhibition, the curators hope to bring more attention to these remarkable paintings that seem cast out of time, by an artist cast out of the canon.“Georgiana Houghton: Spirit Drawings” runs from June 16 through September 11 at The Courtauld Gallery.
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