Poet and His Muse

1959
Agar, Eileen
‘Paris was the place for any artist to be in the 1920s’ wrote Eileen Agar, and it was there that she met many of the leading creative personalities of the day, including Picasso and the surrealist poet Paul Eluard. These relationships had a profound influence on her work and in Poet and his Muse, there are clear echoes of the expressive distortions of Picasso and the overlapping planes of cubism. The subject of the artist and their muse is an established one and has traditionally been presented as a serene encounter. Agar’s version, however, conveys a very modern sensibility, implying the sources of artistic inspiration are exotic, intoxicating and frenzied. Agar’s second husband was the Hungarian writer Joseph Bard (1872–1975) and he is thought to be the inspiration behind many of her works.
  • Artwork Details: 91.5 x 60.7cm
  • Edition:
  • Material description: oil on canvas
  • Credit line: © the artist's estate
  • Theme: Figurative
  • Medium: Painting
  • Accession number: AC 492

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The Arts Council Collection is the UK's most widely seen collection of modern and contemporary art.

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