- Les Corps Abymes d'Edith Rimmington, Peintre Surrealiste AnglaiseBy Michel Remy
- Devenir et Revenir. Le Travail de Deuil chez Emmy Bridgewater et Edith Rimmington, Peintres Surrealistes Anglaise, in La Femme S'Entete: La Part du Feminin dans le SurrealismBy Michel Remy
- Women in the Surrealist Diaspora, in Surrealist Women: An International AnthologyOur PickBy Penelope Rosemont
- Edith Rimmington, in Artists In Britain Since 1945By David Buckman, Goldmark Gallery
- Dictionary of Women Artists: Artists, J-ZBy Delia Gaze
- British Women Surrealists-Deviants from Deviance, by Brigitte Libmann, in This Working-Day World: Women's Lives and Culture(s) In BritainBy Oldfield
- Surrealism in BritainBy Michel Remy
- Another World: Dalí, Magritte, Miro and the SurrealistsBy Patrick Elliott
- On the Thirteenth Stroke of Midnight: Surrealist Poetry in BritainBy Michel Remy
Important Art by Edith Rimmington
Eight Interpreters of the Dream (1940)
In 1936, Rimmington attended the International Surrealist Exhibition in London. Here, the young and already highly influential Spanish artist, Salvador Dalí famously turned up in a diving suit and claimed he would be "diving into the human subconscious." This performative gesture and clear statement had a profound and lasting impact on Rimmington, who four years later, in this painting, featured eight diving suits hung out to dry in the arched niches of a classical colonnade. In place of diving helmets, however, Rimmington has included a series of severed sheep heads, which are scattered and propped up here and there. Indeed, as much as the hanging suits resemble diving attire, they also look like skinned animal carcasses strung up on meat hooks.
Intentionally flesh-colored, the suits also resemble decapitated bodies, or artificial limbs, and it is thus significant that the work was painted just a year after the start of WWII. However, the title of the work, along with Dalí's diving reference, opens the work up to deeper interpretation, linking it to the world of dreams and the subconscious mind, both of which were key subjects for the Surrealists. By painting headless bodies Rimmington separates body from mind, a reminder that the two can be read as distinct entities. The idealised, classical setting here reinforces the dream-like, otherworldly nature of the painting, and resembles the strictly composed architectural paintings by the forefather of Surrealism, Giorgio de Chirico.
French art historian and avid supporter of British Surrealism, Michel Remy has explored Rimmington's complex relationships with the human body, which, as he points out, she often depicts as disjointed, divided, or fragmented, as if "suspended in-between" states such as living/dead, imaginary/real. In doing so, she emphasises the blurred boundaries between the internal and external world of human existence, an idea that formed an integral aspect of Surrealist thought; poet André Breton aptly summarised it as "the liberation of the imagination."
Sisters of Anarchy (1940)
Two versions of the classical Greek statue Athena stand united in this mysterious, earth-toned, ruined interior. Whilst one version of Athena wears classical drapes, the other woman is unusually dressed in owl feathers. The owl costume infuses the more traditional and static image of woman with a new sense of wildness, freedom, and the potential to fly.
Like many artists working in the early to mid-20th century - in an attempt to instil a new sense of order amidst the socio-political chaos of war-torn European society - Rimmington explores classical mythology, depicting the goddess of wisdom, handicraft, and warfare. Like many of the Surrealists (including Max Ernst whose alter ego was also a bird called Loplop), Rimmington identified strongly with owls. She shares this interest with both Remedios Varo and Leonora Carrington. Varo painted Creation of Birds (1958), whereby a woman-owl sits at her desk painting a picture of a bird and then bringing it to life.
The title of the work, Sisters of Anarchy, well describes the two female figures standing so close together in solidarity. It also echoes the title of a sculpture by the Surrealist artist Eileen Agar, called Angel of Anarchy (1936-40). There may be a reference here in the term "sisters" to the allegiances formed between female artists involved in Surrealism; Rimmington did know Agar well, as well as Emmy Bridgewater. It is thought that the "anarchy" referenced in both Rimmington and Agar's titles relates to the Spanish anarchists who emerged during the Spanish civil war, a group which many Surrealists strongly supported.
The Oneiroscopist (1942)
Art historian Michel Remy has described this painting as "one of the icons of British Surrealism". An ominous bird-human hybrid figure sits surrounded by a heavily clouded seascape. The figure is blind and wears a diving suit with his helmet and diving equipment placed to the side. The title of this painting makes reference to the "work" performed by the fictional figure; he/she/it is an oneiroscopist, a person who specialises in studying and interpreting dreams. Indeed, it is likely that the diving suit again makes reference to Salvador Dalí.
It has also been suggested that this painting illustrates the position of the British Surrealist Group in relation to their French counter-parts. It was as if the British fraction of the movement was cast off and pushed into obscurity somewhat. Thus the bird-person sits in isolation with no supporters climbing the ladder to join. Still though, with eyes covered, the creature is a "seer" in the same vain as other Surrealists, always looking within for the answers, and unusually (as at once bird and diver) able to explore both the seas and the skies.
Indeed, Remy describes Rimmington's curious character in this painting with great empathy: "This person lives a strangely luminary life (filled with) anticipation ... immersion and emergence." We can imagine Rimmington's figures readying themselves to climb down the ladder and dive back into the heavy, dream filled clouds that lie below. Yet there is, as Remy points out, impossibility presented to us here; "the helmet is intended for the head, but it is incompatible with the beak, reinforced by the inability of the suit to pass over the beak." With two different feet and human hands, the unlikely nature of this character becomes even more apparent; the dream and the real, and the possible and the impossible are inextricably liked.
Influences and Connections

- Salvador Dalí
- André Breton
- E. L. T. Mesens
- George Onslow-Ford
- Eileen Agar
- Emmy Bridgewater
- Conroy Maddox
- Edward Burra
- John Banting
- Eileen Agar
- Emmy Bridgewater
- Surrealism
- Feminist Movement