London Bulletin

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London Bulletin
Editor-in-chief E. L. T. Mesens
CategoriesArts magazine
FrequencyMonthly
Publisher
  • Arno Press
  • Bradley Press
FounderLondon Gallery
Founded1938
First issueApril 1938
Final issue
Number
June 1940
18–20
Country United Kingdom
Based inLondon
Language English
OCLC 7419596

London Bulletin was a monthly avant-garde art magazine which was affiliated with the London Gallery between April 1938 and June 1940. It was one of the most significant surrealist publications.

Contents

History and profile

The plans to launch the magazine began following the international surrealist exhibition in London in 1936. [1] The magazine was first published in April 1938 with the title London Gallery Bulletin. [1] [2] It was renamed as London Bulletin from the second issue. [2] It came out monthly, [3] and its publisher was the Arno Press based in London. [4] Later the Bradley Press became its publisher. [3] The magazine was financed by Roland Penrose. [5]

London Bulletin regularly published the pamphlets of the exhibitions presented at the London Gallery. [3] [6] It frequently featured reproductions of surrealist paintings and poems of the surrealists. [7] The manifesto of an Egyptian anarchist post-surrealist group, Art et Liberté (Art and Freedom), was published in the magazine in English in 1938. [8] The group members were Anwar Kamel, Ramses Younan and Kamel el-Telmissany who would launch a magazine, Al Tatawwur , in Cairo in 1940. [9] In the document entitled "Long Live Degenerate Art!" they objected to the Nazis' views on "degenerate art" and the Marxists' notion "that modern society looks with aversion on any innovative creation in art and literature which threatens the cultural system on which that society is based, whether it be from the point of view of thought or of meaning." [8] London Bulletin folded before World War II, [10] and its last issue, numbered 18–20, appeared in June 1940. [1] [5] The same year the London Gallery was also closed. [5]

London Gallery News, a small newspaper, was the successor of London Bulletin. [3]

Editors and contributors

E. L. T. Mesens was the editor-in-chief. [5] Humphrey Jennings contributed to the first two issues of the magazine and then began to work with Gordon Onslow Ford as an assistant editor to Mesens. [1] [3] Roland Penrose served as the assistant editor from issue 8/9 published in January 1939 and was replaced by George Reavey from issue 11 dated March 1939. [3]

Major contributors of London Bulletin included Herbert Read, Samuel Beckett, Eileen Agar, John Banting, Conroy Maddox, the French Paul Éluard, André Breton, and Francis Picabia, as well as Belgian surrealist writer Marcel Mariën. [11] Pictures by photographer Lee Miller appeared in several issues. [12]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surrealism</span> International cultural movement active from the 1920s to the 1950s

Surrealism is an art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike scenes and ideas. Its intention was, according to leader André Breton, to "resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality", or surreality. It produced works of painting, writing, theatre, filmmaking, photography, and other media as well.

The British Surrealist Group was involved in the organisation of the International Surrealist Exhibition in London in 1936.

Ithell Colquhoun was a British painter, occultist, poet and author. Stylistically her artwork was affiliated with surrealism. In the late 1930s, Colquhoun was part of the British Surrealist Group before being expelled because she refused to renounce her association with occult groups.

Paul Nougé was a Belgian poet, founder and theoretician of surrealism in Belgium, sometimes known as the "Belgian Breton".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roland Penrose</span> British artist and art historian (1900-1984)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">E. L. T. Mesens</span> Belgian artist and writer (1903–1971)

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Emma Frith Bridgwater, known as Emmy Bridgwater, was an English artist and poet associated with the Surrealist movement.

<i>The Elephant Celebes</i> Painting by Max Ernst

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silvano Levy</span> English surrealism academic

Silvano Levy is an academic specializing in surrealism. He has published on Belgian surrealism with studies on René Magritte, E.L.T. Mesens and Paul Nougé. His research on The Surrealist Group in England began with a film on Conroy Maddox and the book Conroy Maddox: Surreal Enigmas (1995), while a wider interest in the movement led to the editorship of Surrealism: Surrealist Visuality (1997). Levy has curated national touring exhibitions of the work of Maddox and Desmond Morris, and has published a monograph on the latter entitled Desmond Morris: 50 Years of Surrealism (1997), which was followed by the enlarged re-edition Desmond Morris: Naked Surrealism (1999). Subsequent books on Morris include Lines of Thought: The Drawings of Desmond Morris (2008) and three volumes of an analytical catalogue raisonné spanning eight decades. Silvano Levy's monograph on Maddox, The Scandalous Eye. The Surrealism of Conroy Maddox, was published by Liverpool University Press in 2003. The year 2015 saw the publication of Decoding Magritte. Further studies cover Sheila Legge, Dalla Husband, Toni del Renzio, André Breton, Dina Lenković, Jean-Martin Charcot, Mary Wykeham and Birmingham surrealism. Dr Levy is editor of Surrealist Bulletin and has held academic posts at the University of Liverpool, Newcastle Polytechnic, the University of Bath, the University of Hull and Keele University, where he was promoted to Senior Lecturer in French in 1998 and then to Reader in 2005.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Georges Henein</span> Egyptian poet and author (1914–1973)

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<i>The Adulation of Space</i> Painting by René Magritte

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Art et Liberté</span> Egyptian artistic movement 1938–1948

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References

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  4. London Bulletin. Arno Press. 1938.
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