OVERVIEW

1. Introduction to Gabrielle Keiller and the Collection

2. Biography

3. Selected List of Keiller’s Travel and of her work in the Arts

4. Selected list of works entering the Collection

5. Journey into Modernism

6. Selected Exhibition History, Donations, and Legacy

7. Descriptions of Gabrielle Keiller’s Character

8. Description of Dada and Surrealist movements

9. An Appreciation in Twenty-five Objects

10. Summation

11. Acknowledgements

1.Introduction to Gabrielle Keiller and the Collection

Who was the person behind the name attached to the Keiller Library within the National Galleries of Scotland, and what were her achievements? Thousands of visitors from across the globe will have viewed the Dada and Surrealist collection in the Modern 1 or Modern 2 Galleries at the NGS, and a good proportion of these will have entered the Keiller Library, which is located to the side of the permanent Surrealist gallery on the ground floor of Modern 2. Few however will realise the central importance of the donor, Gabrielle Keiller, in the formation and exhibition of one of the premier Dada and Surrealist public collections.

The importance of the collection extends far beyond the many excellent and now familiar paintings. It flings open the doors upon the world of Surrealist text - of poetry, artist book collaborations, Dada and Surrealist periodicals, correspondence; and on into the fertile world of interdisciplinary creations including film and music. Kerry Gledhill, Librarian at the NGS, is firm in her opinion that Keiller was an ultra-disciplined collector, being highly systematic in terms of collecting a cross-section of important works, and in recording and storing them correctly.

I was already aware of the display portion of the Library, and I recall that a previous exhibition of an Edvard Munch print owned by Keiller (Eifersucht, 1896) had piqued my interest, but my true journey into the world of Gabrielle Keiller started in the window of the well-known Inverness bookseller in November 2025. The catalogue of the 1988 exhibition of Keiller’s collection was featured in the window display, and later mysteriously appeared as a Christmas gift. This slim volume left me in no doubt as to the significance of the collection in terms of its quality and extent, and also introduced an air of mystery, as the entirety of the exhibited works were described only as a loan from ‘an important private collection’. The identity of the lender subsequently became clear, with later exhibitions and the major bequest to the National Galleries of Scotland, but this led me to an awareness of how little I knew of the person behind the Library bearing Keiller’s name.

My research led me to the National Galleries of Scotland archives, and to a network of source texts, articles and research papers. I must at this early stage describe my debt to two key sources for my research into Keiller and her collection. These were, the catalogue referred to above, The Magic Mirror: Dada and Surrealism from a private collection, [Ref. 1] which has an incisive and elegant introduction by Elizabeth Cowling; and the marvellous and detailed catalogue for the Surrealism and After exhibition of the Keiller collection, held at the National Galleries of Scotland, in Edinburgh in 1997. This 208 page text was the work of of Elizabeth Cowling, and included a biographical sketch by Richard Calvocoressi; with additional assistance from Patrick Elliott and Ann Simpson. [Ref. 2] The catalogue details the full and magnificent extent of the collection, with 455 entries. Taking into consideration the fact that artist books will each contain several images, and that the printed materials are themselves works of art in terms of their text, design and layout, the true extent of the collection is far more extensive than the headline figure of 173 ‘works of art’.

In preparation for this article, I have been privileged to spend three afternoons in the reading rooms at the Modern Two Gallery, Dean, in Edinburgh. The experience of viewing the source Dada and Surrealist publications at first hand was akin to being immersed in oxygen and fireworks, as the full force of this first wave of modernist thought and aesthetic hit home. My aim is to briefly explore Gabrielle Keiller’s life story, to contextualise the social and psychological milieu which underpinned the Dada and Surrealist movements, and to sample Keillor’s collecting within and beyond these movements. The presentation of ‘twenty-five objects’ will pay special attention to the printed materials within the collection; to inter-disciplinary collaboration; examples of philosophical discourse; and work by female artists. Given the complexity of the subject matter, and with due deference to Louis Aragon’s principle of ‘le marveillux quotidien’, I will take a non-linear approach to methodology, although following an approximate date order for the narrative.

Gabrielle Keiller had by 1985 built a large collection of Dada and Surrealist art, which included the rich hinterland of Dada and Surrealist collaborations, artist books, poetry, and correspondence. Andre Breton focussed on the written word within his 1924 Surrealist Manifesto, and this remained an important, even a central element of the movement. The rich world of visual representation within Surrealism with which we are familiar, evolved naturally from the vivid imagery within automatic writing, from the movement’s philosophical underpinnings, and also from Dada. Keiller’s assiduous collection of textual, archival and visual elements over 25 years, was only matched by her foresight and generosity in make a bequest to the National Galleries of Scotland. The Keiller Library at the Modern Two Gallery, Dean, Edinburgh was named in her honour. We will go on to explore the formation of the collection, and its subsequent profile.

When viewing examples of Dada and Surrealism, we should keep in mind the interactive and tactile elements, and the central role of play within both movements’ overall output. This playfulness provides an essential check to our analytic and historical approach. In the spirit of Dada, I will ‘cheat’ extensively in presenting more than twenty-five objects, and in pursuing tangents from the main topic. I hope to capture an echo of Dada and Surrealism within the article - to form a collision of the incongruous, the coincidental, and the unconscious at work.

2. Biography

fig.1: Gabrielle Keiller, Childhood photo, National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) archive

fig.2: Gabrielle Keiller playing golf, NGS archive

Gabrielle Keiller’s life spanned the 20th Century. She was born Gabrielle Muriel Ritchie in North Berwick, Scotland, while her parents were taking a golfing holiday. There were two younger brothers; Montgomery (Monty) Wadsworth Ritchie b.1910, and a her younger brother Richard (Dick), who died in his 20’s. Her father, James Wadsworth Ritchie (1861-1924), was born in Geneseo, New York State, and her English mother, Daisy Muriel Hoare, came from a banking and brewing background. Keiller’s paternal Grandmother, Cornelia Wadsworth (1837-1921) had an interesting life. Originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she married Montgomery Ritchie in 1857, and the couple had one son, Gabrielle’s father. Montgomery Ritchie died of an illness contracted while serving during the American Civil War. Cornelia remarried age 30 in 1869 to John ‘Black Jack’ Adair (1823-85). Adair gathered 28,000 acres of land at Lough Veagh in Co. Donegal. Adair first travelled to the US in 1866, and he met Cornelia Wadsworth at a ball. The couple returned to Ireland and commissioned Glenveagh Castle; Cornelia Wadsworth was involved in the creation of its landscaped gardens. In 1877, Adair established the JA Ranch in Texas with Charles Goodnight, a cattle driver; Adair’s main role was as financier. He only ever visited the ranch three times, and died aged 62 on the way back from his third visit. At its peak the ranch extended to 1.3 million acres. After a long dispute with the Trustees over their management of the estate during the Great Depression and an associated drought, Montgomery (Gabrielle’s brother), took control of the JA Ranch in 1935. It took many years to turn it around, and to pay off debts. [Ref. 3] Gabrielle’s niece, Cornelia Wadsworth Ritchie, continues to farm the ranch to this day. [Ref. 4] In the post-World War II days, and once the JA Ranch was on a path to success, Montgomery became an avid art collector. It was Gabrielle’s share of the inheritance which helped to fund her own art collecting.

Keiller grew up in Ashwell, near Oakham, England. She was firstly educated by governesses but was later sent ‘unusually early’ to a boarding school, which is likely to have have led to being deprived, to an extent, of parental nurturing. Keiller remembered spending her summer holidays at Glen Veagh Castle, and this sparked her interest in gardening.

Keiller became an enthusiast for Golf - and later won the Lady’s Open Championship in Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Monaco in 1948. Gabrielle first married John Edward Lorne Campbell Currie, on 22 April 1931, in Southampton. She had one son, Giles, to this marriage. Her second marriage was to Charles Richard Style, at Westminster, in the autumn of 1938. During the Second World War, Keiller drove an ambulance for the London Auxiliary Ambulance Service, and passed her exam for the Treatment of Air Raid Casualties, with distinction.

Gabrielle was happiest in her third marriage, to Alexander Keiller, a scion of the Dundee marmalade empire. They had met while playing golf. The couple married in 1951 and they shared all of their interests. They both golfed. Alexander Keiller had commenced researching ancient artefacts and civilisations, and he carried out and sponsored archaeological exploration at the prehistoric stone circle at Avebury, buying the site in 1934. The couple had gathered a large collection of witchcraft, demonology and erotic literature (433 books were gifted by Keiller to the National Library of Scotland in 1966); and they built a large collection of Cow Creamers. With the exception of golf, all of these interests are of relevance to the Surrealist movement (q.v.).

Fig. 3. Keiller in the garden of Telegraph Cottage, NGS Archives

In 1954, Alexander and Gabrielle went to live at Telegraph Cottage Kingston upon Thames, but sadly Alexander died of cancer within one year of the move. Gabrielle retained a very strong attachment to the Cottage, and developed its 4 acre garden, with help. She loved entertaining there, and it became a base for her art activities and collecting, and for social gatherings. Keiller’s sculpture collection grew, and was carefully sited within the gardens.

Although Keiller’s life may have been insulated to an extent by inherited wealth, there would have been challenges associated with her war service, the two divorces, and the early death of her third husband. After Alexander’s death, Keiller gave up golf, and directed her attention to cultural and intellectual exploration. Keiller commissioned documentation and archives of the work at Avebury. She later donated the site museum and its contents to Historic England, and the museum was re-named The Alexander Keiller Museum. [Ref. 5]

By a mysterious alignment of the planets, Paul Nash, one of the British Surrealists, had become fascinated by the pre-historic standing stones at Avebury, and some of his paintings from the 1920’s included depictions of the megaliths there. Nash later joined the committee for the preparation of the key 1936 British Surrealist Exhibition [Ref. 6]

Between 1956-1970, Keiller volunteered her services to Rupert Bruce-Mitford, then Keeper of British and Medieval Antiquities at the British Museum. In this role, she contributed to the study of the Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial. Keiller undertook a careful photographic record, and these images were published in Bruce-Mitford’s book on Sutton-Hoo. A familiar pattern emerges: Keiller develops a fascination for a field of learning, then learns from every available source, acquires new skills, and documents the results. Keiller’s photography skills here included capturing images of archaeological fieldwork and of objects within a museum setting, then developing her own photographic negatives, and printing the results.

Keiller donated the couple’s collection of 667 cow cream jugs to the Stoke on Trent Museum and Art Gallery in 1962 - with the stipulation that two thirds should be on permanent display - surely a mixed blessing. [Ref. 7] There is something surreal about such a collection, an intuition which is reinforced by some of the designs. Selected photos of the cow creamer collection appear in the National Galleries for Scotland archives, and I have included an example of a pair of pottery cows, which are in exuberant proto-Picasso style.(Fig.4)

Fig. 4 Photo of pottery cows

In the late 1950’s Keiller became a collector of art, initially of Impressionist, Old Masters and Cubist work. Soon after her 1960 introduction to Peggy Guggenheim, Keiller switched her collecting over to contemporary British art, and to Dada and Surrealism.

Sadly, there was a major fire at Telegraph Cottage, in the early hours of 12th June 1986. The night was dry however, and Gabrielle and her butler, Remo, managed to retrieve the great majority of the works and printed materials to the lawn. However, some of the collection did sustain some smoke and water damage. [Ref. 8] This catastrophic event was a great shock Keiller, and those who knew her said that her health started to deteriorate from that point forward. Initially she moved to an apartment in London. In the end, Keiller developed dementia, and in 1993 she entered a nursing home near Bath, where she died in 1995. Gabrielle Keiller’s ashes were buried alongside those of her husband, in Deeside, Scotland.

Keiller undoubtedly felt a strong attachment to Scotland - it was after all, her birthplace, and also the home of golf. It was in Scotland that she met Alexander Keiller; and it was there that she found recognition of her advisory and committee skills within the National Galleries of Scotland.

Gabrielle Keiller came late to collecting 20th Century Art, in 1962, but what an impression she made. Keiller was multi-talented, disciplined in her collecting, and had an unerring eye, all of which opened doors, propelling her into the centre of the British art world. Once the importance of Keiller’s collection became known, she was a generous lender, starting with the ‘Dada and Surrealism Reviewed’ touring exhibition of 1978. Beyond oiling the wheels of art commerce, Keiller’s purchases and lending no doubt assisted the career of living artists such as Paolozzi. As Keiller’s health started to fade, her lending and giving developed further, firstly in the form of an anonymous loan of her entire collection to the National Galleries of Scotland for the Magic Mirror exhibition in 1988, and secondly in the form of the major bequest to the National Galleries of Scotland, upon her death in 1995.

Keiller sourced many important Dada and Surrealist paintings, mainly in the 1970’s and 1980’s, and these covered the main periods and styles from these movements. The paintings were often moderately sized, but they were important works nonetheless. Keiller was highly aware of the key role for text within Surrealism, hence her detailed attention to collecting artist books, Dada and Surrealist periodicals, Surrealist poetry, and a variety of artist collaborations. These works, inseparable as they are from more traditional art-forms, are one of the key strengths of the Keiller collection.

Obituaries appeared in several papers, and these celebrated her collection and gift to the Scottish nation, and noted her quiet but assured diligence in the field of collecting, public education via lectures, and advisory work. [Ref. 9]

3. Selected List of Keiller’s Travel and of her work in the Arts

1936 Visited New York (Immigration record)

1956 Volunteered at the British Museum (10years)

1956 Bruce-Mitford engaged Gabrielle Keiller to study and document the archaeological work at Sutton Hoo

1959 Toured Italy - viewed Art and Architecture

In 1960, Keiller was introduced to Peggy Guggenheim by a mutual friend, Wyn Henderson (who had managed the Guggenheim Jeune Gallery in Cork Street, London, until its closure in 1939). Keiller visited Peggy Guggenheim at her home, the Palazzo Vernier dei Leoni in Venice, and saw her collection there. In the same year, she attended the Venice Bienniale, where she would have seen work by Eduardo Paolozzi.

1962 Travelled to Texas, visiting her brother Monty.

1963 Travelled to Mexico then Brazil - and attended the San Paolo Bienniale.

1976-86 Volunteer Guide at the Tate Gallery. Gave popular lectures on modern and contemporary - which were typed in full.

1978-85 Sat on the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art Advisory Committee. Gabrielle Keiller wanted only outstanding examples. Recognised by Douglas Hall (the first Keeper of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art) for her ‘acerbity of eye which does not go to sleep ….. and for constantly applying a different and perhaps more rigorous sense of judgement’. [Ref. 10]

In 1979 Keiller was asked by the Contemporary Art Society to act as their buyer, and was given a budget of £11000, with which she purchased 19 works. [Ref. 11]

Gabrielle Keiller generously opened her house to visitors from various arts societies. [Ref. 12]

4. Selected list of works entering the Collection

As an entrée into Keiller’s development as a collector, I will focus here on some early acquisitions.

1959 Henri Rousseau La Statue de Diane au parc, oil on canvas, from the Arthur Tooth Gallery.

1962 Richard Lindner - Solitary III, oil on canvas, from Robert Fraser at his Grosvenor Square Gallery

1962 Eduardo Paolozzi gifted two early drawings to Keiller, now with the National Galleries for Scotland

1963 First purchase from Marlborough Fine Art - Francis Bacon, Pope no.2 (1960). Keiller sold this work in 1979 and purchased another work by Bacon (Figure Study I, 1945), which remains in the collection.

1963 Paolozzi / Kitaj Work in Progress (1962), from Marlborough Fine Art.

1963 Max Ernst Türme (1916) from Marlborough Fine Art.

1964 Edward Burra Collage, (1930) from James Mayor of the Mayor Gallery.

1966 work by Yves Tanguy and Francis Picabia CAT 153, from the Robert Fraser Gallery.

1969 Max Ernst, montrant á une jeune fille la tête de son père (1926 or 1927), from the Mayor Gallery

And, as an illustration of the rich connectivity of the Surrealist world:

1979 René Magritte, La Représentation, oil on canvas laid on plywood (1937). Purchased from Roland Penrose, who had bought it from Paul Éluard in 1938. Éluard had obtained the work directly from Magritte in exchange for a painting by Max Ernst.

Important sources for Periodicals and artist books included:

H.A. Landry (London), who sold books and periodicals.

Johnny Ambruster, a book dealer in Paris, both advised and sold Keiller rare periodicals and ephemera.

Tony Reichardt. Through the Marlborough Fine Art Gallery, Keiller came to know Reichardt, who sold her some important Surrealist books.

5. Journey into Modernism

Gabrielle Keiller, prior to her interest in Dada and Surrealism, had collected the Impressionists and some Old Masters. The question as to the precise origins of her interest in modernist movements is difficult to establish with certainty. However, we note that Keiller was well-travelled, including a journey to the USA in 1936 (based on a New York immigration record), where she may have viewed contemporary art in the major museums; she had money; and from the 1950’s, she had an interest in the esoteric, with reference to the Keiller library of Witchcraft, Demonology, and the Erotic; and also a connection with the pre-historic via her interests in Avebury, Wiltshire. Elizabeth Cowling, who met Keiller in the context of planning for the first major exhibition of her collection in 1988, found that she was ‘very open to new areas of learning’ [Ref. personal communication, April 2026].

In relation to her collecting, Keiller built up her knowledge, but also took advice from a range of sources, including the Galleries listed above, and their Directors.

Individual friends and advisers included Roland Penrose, also a Surrealist artist and well-connected with the key figures within the movement. Keiller acquired Magritte’s La Representation and Alberto Giacometti’s Objet Désagreable à Jeter, from Penrose. A source close to Roland Penrose suggests that despite being able to support Surrealist artists through purchases over many years, he needed in later years to sell work from his collection, as he was buying up agricultural land surrounding Farley farm to prevent development. In addition to buying paintings from the movement, Penrose collected Surrealist literature, artist books, and related correspondence.

Through the 1970s Keiller continued to build her collection, adding works by Jean Arp, André Breton, Edward Burra, Paul Delvaux, René Magritte, Salvador Dalí and Joan Miró, at the same time Keiller sold most of her earlier Old Master, Impressionist and Cubist paintings to help pay for her new acquisitions. An indication of Keiller’s growing knowledge and confidence was her delivery of popular lectures at the Tate Gallery on artists as varied as Jackson Pollock and Stubbs, and these were meticulously prepared.

David Brown, assistant keeper at the Tate Gallery, advised Keiller in the 1980’s, in relation to purchases of works by contemporary British artists including Richard Long, Barry Flanagan, Hamish Fulton, Gilbert and George, Bruce McLean, John Davies, William Turnbull, and Ian Hamilton Finlay. Richard Long personally installed one of his Six Stone Circles (1981) in Keiller’s garden. Many of these works were sold after the fire at Telegraph Cottage, but the painting by Bruce McLean (Gucci Girls) was retained. [Ref. 13]

Dominique de Menil (1908-97), was a major US collector of Surrealist work. She visited Keiller at Telegraph Cottage in 1979. De Menil had an interest in the intersect between modern art and spirituality - and she was on friendly terms with Ernst, Magritte, Dorothea Tanning and many other Surrealists.

Gabrielle Keiller was introduced to Paolozzi by Wyn Henderson in 1960. Wyn Henderson’s son Nigel had studied beside Paolozzi at the Slade in London. Keiller started to collect Paolozzi’s work in 1962, and this developed to the extent that she became the most significant collector of Paolozzi’s work in the 1960’s. Keiller had a close friendship with the artist between 1960 and 1975, and this is illustrated in the Keiller archives by the many postcards Paolozzi sent to Gabrielle, from all over the world.(Fig.5a, 5b.)

Fig. 5a

Fig 5.b.

Keiller and Paolozzi also travelled together, looking at the international art scene. There is some indication of a cooling of relations with Paolozzi in 1975, within a letter from Keiller to the artist, which is held in the National Galleries for Scotland archives.

Paolozzi advised Keiller on acquisitions; specifically, there is reference to advice on purchasing work by Francis Bacon, within the Frank Whitford interviews with Paolozzi recorded in the mid 1990’s, which are stored in the British Library Sound Archives. [Ref. 14]

Given the strength of this connection, and the extent of Keiller’s collecting of Paolozzi’s work, it is therefore germane to consider Paolozzi’s history and the context of his work within the overall collection.

Eduardo Paolozzi (1924 - 2005) was born in Leith, Edinburgh, and his family was originally from Monte Cassino in Italy. He attended the Holy Cross Academy, where he was a fellow pupil of Richard De Marco. In 1940 Paolozzi was interned as an ‘enemy alien’ in HMP Edinburgh for 3 months, and his father, who was being deported as an ‘enemy alien’, died during the sinking of the SS Arandora Star by a German U-boat, in the same year.

Paolozzi started at Edinburgh College of Art in1943, then went to St Martins in London in 1944 and the Slade School of Fine Art between 1944-47. In 1947 he created a collage - ‘a Rich Man’s Plaything’, which is now recognised as being the earliest example of Pop Art. Paolozzi went to Paris, and benefitted greatly from the experience, meeting with Giacometti, Brancusi and others, but he was not formally recognised or represented in Paris, and he returned to Britain in 1949. Paolozzi later taught in Hamburg (from 1960), Cologne, Berlin, and Munich.

Eduardo Paolozzi married Freda Elliot, a textile designer, in 1951, and they divorced in 1988. The couple had three daughters.

Paolozzi’s work fits well into the Surrealist mould, and he recognised his own allegiance to movement. Wiithin a documentary film within the BBC Archive, [Ref. 15] Paolozzi prefers the use of the term ‘Surrealism’ over ‘Pop Art’. And in an interview with J.G. Ballard in 1971, he says, “What I like to think I'm doing is an extension of radical Surrealism”. [Ref.16] Picabia’s machine / human drawings were echoed closely in Paolozzi’s later work, as will become apparent from their representative works, out of the twenty-five chosen examples. Paolozzi also quoted influences from ethnographic Oceanic and African Art, in line with the Surrealists. Finally, his development of Pop Art had common ground with Dada in representing a form of ‘anti-art’, pasting in random everyday objects; also with Surrealist ideas, through ‘impossible’ juxtapositions. In terms of his Pop Art output, Paolozzi seemed to thrive on acquiring the skills of a cultural magpie, albeit alongside his many other deeply emotional and complex sculptures.

Paolozzi’s London studio was recreated in the National Galleries of Scotland Modern 2 in 1999, and his giant metal sculpture, Vulcan (1999), was installed in the café, which required significant architectural ingenuity. Paolozzi had a major stroke 2001, following which he lost the power of speech, and was in need of care. He died in London at the age of 81, in 2005. [Ref. 17]

6. The Keiller Collection: Selected Exhibition History, Donations and Legacy

1978 ‘Dada and Surrealism Reviewed’ - contribution to the Hayward exhibition.

1982 Donated a work by Roland Penrose, The Last Voyage of Captain Cook, (1936) to the Tate.

1985 Donated Gavin Scobie’s sculpture, ‘Step’ (1974) to the National Galleries of Scotland

1985 Donated Paolozzi’s sculpture, Markoni Capital (1962) to the Art Gallery of New South Wales

1986 Donated Paolozzi’s sculpture, Rio, to the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow

1987 Exhibition: Paolozzi at the Serpentine. This solo exhibition was based on Keiller’s large Paolozzi sculpture collection.

1988 Exhibition of Paolozzi sculptures at the Glasgow Garden Festival in 1988.

1988 Exhibition: The Magic Mirror, curated by Elizabeth Cowling for the National Galleries of Scotland, and shown at the RSA. Gabrielle Keiller was the anonymous and sole lender for the exhibition.

1997 Surrealism and After, reviewed by William Packer in the Financial Times. [Ref. 18]

2016 Exhibition: contribution to ‘Surreal Encounters: Collecting the Marvellous: Works from the Collections of Roland Penrose, Edward James, Gabrielle Keiller and Ulla and Heiner Pietzsch’ at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, also toured to the Hamburger Künsthalle and the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.

Gabrielle Keiller’s first will in relation to her collection, was in favour of the Glasgow Hunterian Museum, in 1971. However Keiller reconsidered when Glasgow University contemplated selling some important Whistler works. Elizabeth Cowling is of the belief that Keiller also considered a bequest to the Tate, but the risk was that her collection would have been ‘lost’ within the vast extent of the Tate holdings. Roland Penrose had felt the same. Given Keiller’s close involvement with the National Galleries of Scotland from 1977, Douglas Hall had several conversations with Keiller, leading her to make a bequest to the National Galleries of Scotland in 1980. The gift was duly made following her death in 1995. In the press release for the Surrealism and After exhibition of 1997, the bequest was described as being “the largest ….. in the history of the National Galleries of Scotland”. [Ref. 19]

7. Memories of Gabrielle Keiller

Dominique de Menil said in a letter of thanks following her visit in 1979 - “… as time passes, the vision of your beautiful garden remains radiant. With it persists the memory of some great paintings, and more than anything else, of your lovely hospitality”. [Ref. 20]

Antony Penrose (son of Roland) found Keiller to be ‘absolutely charming, kind and approachable. I liked her’. [Ref. personal communication, April 2026]

Elizabeth Cowling described Keiller as being ‘modest, self-deprecating, and friendly’. Cowling had a very clear memory of the two of them opening Duchamp’s Bôite en valise, pulling out the contents and arranging them in various playful formats, before the 1988 ‘Magic Mirror’ exhibition. She also remembers seeing a surreal ‘sacred’ golf ball mounted on a plinth, above Keiller’s fireplace. [Ref. both, personal communication, March 2026]

Dawn Ades recalls Keiller’s humour and good grace. When preparing for an exhibition, Keiller had phoned to ask if Ades had her copy of The Blind Man, a Dada review periodical from 1917, as she couldn’t find it. A few days later, Keiller sent a message to Ades - “blind woman finds blind man”! [Ref. personal communication, April 2026]

Richard Calvocoressi spoke in his ‘biographical sketch’ for the ‘Surrealism and After’ catalogue, of his recollection of Keiller as being someone who was a perfectionist, balanced with excellent good humour and a zest for life, and with an excellent sense of style.

William Packer, Art Critic, said in his obituary for Keiller, ‘she was always lively, generous and engaging’.

Eduardo Paolozzi, in Night Waves, BBC Radio 3: ’She [Keiller] had this incredible reasoning….. a certain kind of imperial eccentricity. She found it very easy to like Surrealism as being quirky, naughty, and for her, marvellous’. [Ref. 21]

Initial research into the Dada and Surrealist movements rapidly dissuaded me from attempting any systematic historical survey - their complexity represents a veritable porridge of inspirations, philosophy, alliances and disputes. It is however important to capture some of the background and the flavour of these movements, in aiding our appreciation of Keiller’s collection. For those interested in further researching the history, there is a seminal text, ‘Dada and Surrealism Reviewed’, which was prepared for the Hayward touring exhibition of 1978. [Ref. 22]

8. Description of the Dada and Surrealist movements

Dada was born out of the chaos of World War I. In essence, it was an artistic response to the insanity of a world war which pitted farmer against farmer, peaceful worker against worker, in an orgy of destruction. The authorities and the pervasive political system which permitted such madness, were deconstructed by Dada’s nonsense verse, music and iconoclastic visual arts. Dada has been characterised as being nihilistic, but there is a sense that ‘nonsense’ could build something new from the ashes, through an absolute adherence to Truth. There were formal connections also with the Anarchist movement which pursued the decentralisation of power - Hugo Ball, one of the earliest Dadaists, made translations of Bakunin, and Hans Richter had connections with the anarchist group in Zurich. In Germany, Dada was actively suppressed following its role in mocking the military during the Spartacus revolution of 1919. Hitler was later to refer to Dada as ‘art Bolshevism’, a reference to an affiliation with Communism, which was carried forward through elements of the Surrealist movement. [Ref. 23]

Dada also had strong representation in the USA, from Old World immigrants including Marcel Duchamp and the famous Baroness von Freytag-Loringhoven, who could not move without expressing her version of revolution, cross-dressing in public (radical for the time), wearing fantastical dress and bizarre postures. Keiller acquired a copy of the single issue the ‘New York Dada’ magazine of 1921, [Ref. 24], the cover featuring a perfume bottle and plastered with inverted text of “new York Dada 1921’ (Fig.6)

Fig.6.

Fig.7.

The magazine featured a poem by von Freytag-Loringhoven [Fig. 7].

If you will permit a small diversion, the Baroness also published in The Little Review periodical, alongside James Joyce, whose Ulysses first appeared in serialised form in this journal between 1918 and 1920. Her first appearance in this journal was in the June 1918 edition. [Ref. 25] The pictured example of Freytag-Loringhoven’s work is relatively demure, to avoid the obscenity laws which had hamstrung the earlier editions. For those who wish to experience the full force of the Baroness’ expression as poet, artist in found objects, and performance artist (she was a pioneer in all of these fields), I can commend the structured presentation and review of her life and poetry writings, within ’Body Sweats’ [Ref. 26]

In the early 1920’s, artists from all over the world, including the Dada artists who were returning from New York, began to congregate in Paris. One of the key figures was Max Ernst, who was one of several who moved seamlessly from Dada to Surrealism. Some members of both movements, including Louis Aragon, had political affiliations to Communism, and the artists were certainly politically aware and engaged - members protested against acts of imperialism and oppression, including the invasion of Morocco during the Rif War of 1925. However the movement’s core mission as expressed in Andre Breton’s Surrealist manifesto of 1924, was to pursue the power of dreams, through techniques such as Automatism (representing the unconscious generation of words, or the related use of any creative media). It remains a moot point as to the extent that the Surrealists pursued true automatism, as much of their poetry was highly grammatical, and their paintings highly designed.

The Surrealists’ shared knowledge of key Romantic, Esoteric and modern texts on Psychology, within their libraries (likely shared between members), became very important. Breton and Apollinaire in particular had thoroughly researched proto-modernist writing by key French authors including Balzac, Rimbaud (q.v.) and Victor Hugo, who himself was widely read on early esoteric sources, including Swedenborg. The fact that Breton later openly acknowledged occultism as a source for Surrealist methodology and inspiration is however ironic, given that Ithell Colquhoun was expelled from the British group in 1940 for her refusal to renounce occultism, by its leader, Edouard Mesens. The Litterature Nouvelle Série (Paris, 1922-23), of which some issues appear in Keiller’s collection, explicitly references key texts from historic occult figures; Hermes Trismegistus, Flamel, Agrippa, and Péladan. 19th Century writers are also referenced, including Rimbaud, Lautréamont and De Sade.

The explicit links between Surrealism and Esotericism were also confirmed through Breton’s documented study of Viatte’s Les Sources Occultes du Romantisme (1928), as described in Bauduin’s 2012 thesis. [Ref. 27]

Surrealism also grew out the trauma of the First World War, but through a more studied interest in the workings of the human mind, influenced heavily by the wartime experiences of Breton, Aragon, Éluard, and Apollinaire. The scientific understanding of psychic automatism was explored by André Breton, based on his personal experience of the relatively young discipline of Psychiatry during the War, and subsequent research. Breton himself was careful to steer a path which avoided both scientific determinism, and its opposite, the purely subjective description of psychic experience. Through his work in the St. Dizier Hospital from August 1916, Breton became aware of techniques to measure the physiology of shell-shocked patients and those suffering from hysteria, using the Sphygmometric oscillometer, and later, the Myograph (an electrical recording of muscle activity). These studies later translate into the Surrealists’ depiction of the electro-physiogical trace within their work. Breton later studied under Babinski, the Parisian Neurologist.

In terms of achieving an understanding of the dissociative state of hysteria (which would be a common finding in cases of shell-shock), Breton had read Charcot’s pioneering work on the subject. He first developed an interest in automatic writing and its potential use as a Psychological treatment, through the work of Pierre Janet, who ‘prescribed’ this approach to patients suffering from hysteria. This technique became one of the defining characteristics of Surrealism. [Ref. 28]

The Surrealist development of these ideas, along with the incorporation of contemporary developments in Psychology, is revealed in Antonin Artaud’s recollection of his 1924 visit to the ‘Bureau of Surrealist Research’, where he saw an exhibit of Freud’s text, ’The Interpretation of Dreams’, which was framed with spoons and placed on an altarpiece. This must be a prime example of Surrealism intermixed with scientific study, and the influence of Dada! The astonishing confluence of discovery and coincidence is illustrated by Marcel Duchamp’s prior use of the ‘graphic trace’, wherein he traced the curves produced by randomly dropped lengths of thread; he later re-created these precise curves in art works such as Stoppages Etalon (in MOMA, New York), noting the date of 1914. Max Ernst also used the graphic trace in his collaboration with Paul Éluard, Les Malheurs des Immortels, 1921 (q.v.). This spread of ideas demonstrates the close integration and common currency amongst early Dada and Surrealist artists, based on the fruitful dialogue between the scientific, the unconscious, and the poetic. These influences are well-described in a Tate Research paper, Becoming Machine: Surrealist Automatism and Some Contemporary Instances, by David Lomas, 2012. [Ref. 29]

Breton and Aragon had been witnesses of the horrors of the First World War and in essence, the fragmentation of human creativity into dreamscapes represented a reaction to scientific objectivity, and to the ‘rational’ world which could support mass destruction. Breton, Aragon and Apollinaire were very much aware of their intellectual, artistic and literary antecedents. They referenced Rimbaud’s ‘Delire II - L’Alchimie du Verbe’ of 1873 - which could pass for being a foundational text for Surrealism. [Ref. 30] And they developed their thinking on a ‘counter-mythos’, where the ordinary object takes the place of classical figures, noting the work of Georgio de Chirico in conducting a metaphysical translation of classical statuary for a time of War, for example in Le Muse Inquetanti (1917-18) (Fig.8)

Fig.8. © the estate of the artist

The safe symbols of ordinary life in the midst of war, found voice in Louis Aragon’s appreciation of Apollinaire’s discovery of the alchemy of the ordinary, as in this quote: “Aragon, no stranger to the horrors of the Front, was astonished at how the rugged trappings of the life of a foot soldier, such as tattoos on biceps, graffiti on barrack walls, or photographs and postcards sent from home, could manifest as ‘les plus beaux témoinages de notre divinité’, (‘the most beautiful witnesses of our divinity’) for Apollinaire”. [Ref. 31]

The philosophical underpinnings of Surrealism incorporated a broad range of influences, including the broad concept of Esotericism (specifically; spiritualism, hermeticism, and alchemy). Louis Aragon was one of the poet-philosophers of the proto-surrealists, with his ‘Paysan de Paris’, which even in its title provided the ‘impossible’ contrast of peasant innocence with city sophisticate, provided the core concept of ‘le marveilleux quotidien’, which represented the dedicated but unforced search for finding marvellous conjunctions and meanings within everyday scenes - exaggerated within the nocturnal cluttered streets of Paris. [Ref. 32] Added to this, is Breton’s concept of ‘the reconciliation of opposites’, for instance, the idea of ‘l’amour fou’.

The Surrealists frequented the Ethnographic Museum in Paris in the 1920’s, and as for some of their predecessors (notably, Gauguin), they took inspiration from Oceanic and African culture in the form of carvings of human and mythical figures. They understood that what had been previously termed ‘primitive culture’ contained very powerful expressions and archetypes, which were universally relevant.

Psychoanalysis also provided some of the theoretical base for the movement. André Breton had encountered shell-shock during his service at a Psychiatric Hospital in Nantes, and later in the French ambulance service at Verdun, during the First World War. This led Breton to take an interest in psychic phenomena, and onwards to the work of Pierre Janet, who encouraged automatic writing as a therapeutic technique. Breton was also read Sigmund Freud, whose ideas provided rich material for the Surrealists in terms of the significance of psychic conflict and of dreams.

The creativity of the times, drawing in truly innovative artists from many nations and creative fields to Paris, represented something of an enlightenment following the dark days of the First World War. Poets and artists met in Breton’s house or in cafés, and networked feverishly. Female artists were often but not always, partners of the male protagonists. Although women were subject to patriarchal and dismissive attitudes (they were strikingly absent from posters and writings on the work of the Surrealists), they did have free reign to create. Female Surrealists began to appear in exhibitions, including the London International Exhibition of Surrealism, in 1936. Elizabeth Cowling, Professor Emerita in the History of Art at Edinburgh University, considered that the female artists within Dada and Surrealism had a fair degree of autonomy and agency in terms of their creative output. [Ref. personal communication, March 2026].

Aside from the philosophical basis of Dada and Surrealism, and the strength of the key personalities who drove their development, there was definitely ‘something in the air’ in relation to the sudden appearance of these movements. The film-maker, Luis Buñuel, may have been aware of the Surrealists, and had met Dalí , but recollections of his childhood within his autobiography revealed a strong interest in dreams and the bizarre. When Buñuel presented a first screening of Un Chien Andalou (1929), his joint project with Salvador Dalí , he was welcomed into the Surrealist fold within the week. [Ref. 33]

Disputes between Surrealists inevitably arose, sometimes through philosophical differences, or jealousies, whether personal or professional. Even more commonly, tensions arose through the sin of failure to adhere to the Surrealist creed, as strictly defined by Breton. The Breton / Dalí correspondence as collected by Keiller (q.v.) is one such instance of lingering tensions, although for much of the period in question, the 1930’s, the two were careful not to fall out entirely.

We will now move onto the twenty-five objects chosen in appreciation of Keiller’s achievements.

9. An Appreciation in Twenty-five Objects