Fay Pomerance – { feuilleton }

Untitled (2011) by YDK Morimoe. Via Jim Post at Dennis Cooper’s.

• For The Climax Of The Night by Total Leatherette is almost certainly the only album you’ll see this year with autofellatio cover art. Faux Fox gives a taste of the new album, while an earlier piece, Squeeze Hunk, features a Tom of Finland-style video. And speaking of which, Dome Karukoski’s feature film, Tom of Finland, is released in the UK this week. Related: Tom of Finland coffee.

• The death of playwright Joe Orton in 1967 prompted yet more 50th anniversary articles this week. Mentioned here before, and better value than all the textual appraisal, is the BBC’s 70-minute TV documentary from 1982, A Genius Like Us: A Portrait of Joe Orton, which includes interviews with family, friends, colleagues and Orton’s biographer, John Lahr.

• Two skulls, 50,000 postcards and a book that took 50 years to finish: Stuart Jeffries visits artist Tom Phillips.

• New at the Internet Archive: 25,000 78RPM records. You can never go wrong with Duke Ellington.

• Lock Your Door and The Reformation of St. Jules: Algernon Blackwood filmed in 1949.

• Redemption, an exhibition of art by Fay Pomerance (1912–2001) at Ushaw College, Durham.

• At Dirge Magazine: Daniel Pietersen on the myth of the sunken city.

• Mix of the week: FACT Mix 613 by Aaron Dilloway.

• Laetitia Sadier’s favourite albums.

• RIP Hywel Bennett

• Sunken City (1961) by Les Baxter | Ys (1971) by Alan Stivell | Atlantis (1971) by Deuter

The Sixth Palace of Hell (1945).

Fay Pomerance’s painting of Lilith makes a startling appearance in a book I have about the history of magic symbols, and it’s that appearance which prompts this post since I’ve never seen her work given any attention elsewhere. This seems surprising when women artists, and artists whose concerns encompass mysticism or the occult, are receiving greater attention than ever before.

The Union of Isis and Osiris (1959).

Pomerance was British, and had the misfortune to be working during a lengthy period when expressions of the imagination or unorthodox spirituality in visual art were regarded as suspect or even disreputable. Her work also stands apart from any of the prevailing movements which provide such convenient labels for those art critics and writers who dislike anything that won’t fit into one of their boxes. The Lilith picture shows an obvious debt to another British artist who stands apart from the crowd: William Blake. The BBC’s Your Paintings site has a few of Pomerance’s larger works from the collection at Durham University, including the Sphere of Redemption below which is painted on a fibreglass globe, but for the moment there isn’t a dedicated site representing her art.

The Temptation (date unknown).

The Sphere of Redemption (date unknown).

Tag: Fay Pomerance

Weekend links 373

The art of Fay Pomerance, 1912–2001