Emmy

It’s surprising to some that between the 1930s and 1950s, Birmingham was a hotbed of Surrealist activity.

Born in Edgbaston, Birmingham (UK) (10 November 1906 – 13 March 1999), Emma “Emmy” Frith Bridgwater became the involuntary ‘face’ of the Birmingham Surrealists—not to mention the only woman in the group. More than her fellow members Conroy Maddox or the Melville Brothers, Bridgwater earned respect and recognition on the International Surrealist stage, and her art and legacy deserve much wider acclaim. For example, the author of Surrealism in Britain, art historian Michel Remy, describes her influence as ‘of the same importance to British surrealism as the arrival of Dalí in the ranks of the French surrealists.’

The Birmingham Surrealists found their identity during the war, meeting around the city at various pubs and cafes—including the White Horse near the Council House, the Trocadero in Temple Street, and the Kardomah coffee house, which was described as a hub for “artists, writers, students, would-be actors and criminals alike”.

After discovering R. H Wilenski’s book of anti-rationalist ideas in the Central Library and seeing the book’s pages filled with images by Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso, and Joan Miró, Maddox believed there was potential for artistic renewal in Birmingham—so he wrote to the local paper criticising the state of the current exhibitions in the City. This initiative led him to brothers John and Robert Melville, who had moved from London to Birmingham when John was a teenager. The older Melville was a predominately self-taught artist despite taking a couple of classes at the Birmingham College of Art, while Robert was an art critic. In later years, the group would meet at Conroy Maddox’s Balsall Heath home along with other members including the painter Oscar Mellor, the poet Henry Reed, and, eventually, painter and anthologist Desmond Morris. All were on a mission to redefine concepts of reality and the marvellous.

Emmy Bridgwater, Untitled (c.1942).

Bridgwater made contact with the group after attending the London International Surrealist Exhibition in 1936, a transformative experience for her. Slightly younger than her contemporaries, her attraction to Surrealism was through the 1930s interest in automatism rather than the illusionary paintings of Salvador Dalí and Rene Magritte. She shared This attribute with Ithell Colquhoun, Alice Rahon, and Jacqueline Lamba. Yet within the Birmingham Surrealists—aside from being the only woman—her art always stood out on the international circuit.

In early 1940, she joined the British Surrealist Group after being introduced by Maddox and R. Melville, and diligently attended their meetings for most of the following decade. The experience led to a series of personal and professional experiences, including a close friendship with the artist Edith Rimmington and a brief, intense affair with fellow British Surrealist Group member Toni del Renzio. She was also thriving professionally, contributing poems to numerous international surrealist publications (including del Renzio's Arson: an ardent review), and in 1942 held her first solo exhibition at Jack Bilbo's Modern Gallery. In 1947, Bridgwater was one of six English artists chosen by André Breton to exhibit at the Exposition Internationale du Surrealisme at the Galerie Maeght in Paris, which subsequently became the last major international surrealist group exhibition.

Emmy Bridgwater, Night Work Is About To Commence (1943).

As Whitney Chadwick stated, ‘her writing echoes her visual iconography: metamorphosis of natural elements combined with dream or nightmare-like recollection of personal details,’ while her ‘sensual evocation of the natural world - flowers, birds, eggs, and tendrils - may indicate memories of the leafy Edgbaston suburbs, or may equally be a metaphorical representation of her frustrated sexual and maternal desires.’

Emmy never acknowledged the autobiographical nature of her work; she preferred to spare details and say they were “just personal,” and she rarely dated her art. This prevented critical eyes from assuming and tracing a connection to a significant moment in her life, as was so common in associating her art with current circumstances. As R. Melville said, her work is ‘more poetic, more disturbingly true to an abiding state of being’ than it first appears, while her “clear-sighted” visions come from that ‘region of phantasmal hopes and murky desires’ that few are able to perceive.

Emmy Bridgwater, Night Time Phoenix (c.1945).

When Bridgwater died, one obituary read: ‘She travelled to France, signed the declaration of the Surrealist Group in England, which reaffirmed its allegiance to the principles of Surrealism and returned to Britain to take care of her mother and handicapped sister. Along with her commitments to Surrealism, she also had an obligation to her family.’ To continue her obit:

She eventually settled in London around 1948 and remained there until 1986, when she moved back to Birmingham. In 1970 she began working in collage. In 1971 she exhibited at "Britain's Contribution to Surrealism of the 30s and 40s" at the Hamet Gallery, London, in 1982 at "Peinture Surrealiste en Angleterre 1930-1960" at the Galerie 1900/2000 in Paris and in 1985 at "Salute to British Surrealism 1930-1950" in Colchester, Essex, together with exhibitions at Blond Fine Art, in London, and at the Ferens Gallery, Hull.

Her obituary in The Independent read:

Her paintings show an ability to enter a personal dream world and transform the visions she experienced there into bold, unselfconscious, emotionally charged landscapes which more often than not strike into the very depths of one's mind. Using a limited palette and painting thickly, she was able to bring together seemingly unrelated objects which she used to fill desolate landscapes, giving the paintings a narrative quality of her own making.

All of this hints at how incredibly active her life was, yet Bridgwater is seldom more than the odd paragraph in anthologies of Women Surrealists, where she is discussed aside from other, more talked-about artists. As recent exhibitions and reappraisals have proved, she was more than just a footnote in the annuals of art history.

Emmy Bridgwater, Necessary Bandages (1942).