Grace Pailthorpe facts for kids

Grace Winifred Pailthorpe (born July 29, 1883 – died July 19, 1971) was a British artist, surgeon, and researcher in psychology. She is known for her unique surrealist paintings.

Early Life and World War I Service

Grace Pailthorpe was born in St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex, in 1883. She was the third of ten children and the only daughter. Her parents, Edward and Anne Pailthorpe, were part of a strict religious group called the Plymouth Brethren.

Because of their beliefs, Grace and her siblings were taught at home. This limited their contact with the outside world. After her father passed away in 1904, her family moved to Southport in Lancashire.

In 1908, Grace started studying at the Royal College of Music. However, she soon decided to pursue medicine instead. By 1914, she had become a qualified doctor. She earned her degree from Durham University after studying at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle upon Tyne.

During World War I, Grace Pailthorpe worked as a surgeon. She served with great skill in military hospitals in London, Paris, and Liverpool. In 1915, she worked in France at the Hôpital Temporaire d'Arc-en-Barrois. The next year, she was a surgeon at the Scottish Women's Hospital in Salonika.

Medical and Psychology Career

After the war, Grace traveled widely across the world. She spent four years in Western Australia from 1918 to 1922. There, she worked as a medical officer for a gold mining company. She also served as a district medical officer in a place called Youanmi.

When she returned to England in 1922, Grace began studying psychological medicine. She also learned about Freudian analysis, a way of understanding the mind. She started research into why people commit crimes at Birmingham Prison. In 1923, she received a grant from the Medical Research Council. This allowed her to continue her research at Holloway Women's Prison.

That same year, a paper she wrote about difficult behaviors was published in The Lancet. She also became a member of the British Psychoanalytic Society. Grace wrote books and papers about the psychology of people who commit crimes. In 1931, she helped create the Association for the Scientific Treatment of Criminals. This group later became the Portman Clinic, which is now part of the National Health Service. It was the first group in the world to use science to help people with difficult behaviors. Famous thinkers like Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud were vice presidents of this association.

Artistic Journey and Surrealism

In 1935, Grace Pailthorpe met Reuben Mednikoff. Together, they began to study the psychology of art. They got married and lived in Port Isaac in Cornwall. The couple did experiments using psychoanalysis and created surrealist art. Surrealism is an art movement that explores dreams and the unconscious mind.

Grace showed her art at the International Surrealist Exhibition in London in 1936. She also contributed to other Surrealist shows and publications. Famous artists like André Breton greatly admired her paintings and drawings.

In 1938, Grace published a work called The Scientific Aspect of Surrealism. In this and later writings, she shared her idea that surrealism and psychoanalysis could help people find personal freedom. She believed they could also help artists express themselves freely. She and Mednikoff would analyze each other's art. They wanted to understand the hidden meanings behind each image. They saw this as a different way to do analysis. Every two weeks, they would switch roles, becoming either the patient or the analyst. Grace shared the results of these studies in lectures. However, they were not published during her lifetime.

After some disagreements, Grace and Mednikoff were formally removed from the British Surrealist group in 1940.

Later Life and Legacy

In July 1940, Grace Pailthorpe and Reuben Mednikoff left Britain for New York City. They later spent time in California. From 1942 to 1943, Grace worked at the Essondale Mental Health hospital in British Columbia, Canada. In 1944, she and Mednikoff had a joint art exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery. This show featured over eighty artworks. It was very important for the development of surrealist art in western Canada. Grace also gave talks about surrealism, and one was broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

The couple returned to England in March 1946. From 1948 to 1952, Grace was a Consultant Psychiatrist at the Portman Clinic. Mednikoff worked as her assistant. She also ran a School of Art Therapy from 1950 until 1958. After that, she moved to Sussex.

Grace Pailthorpe passed away in July 1971. Her work has been featured in many important art exhibitions. In 1986, the Leeds City Art Gallery included her in a major show called Angels of Anarchy - Surrealism in Britain in the Thirties. They also featured her in their 1992 exhibition Women Artists of the British Surrealist Movement, 1930-1990. A joint show with Mednikoff, called Sluice Gates of the Mind, was held at the same gallery in 1998. In 2021, an exhibition called Fertile Spoon showed Grace's works alongside those of a modern artist named Mary Stephenson.