Jennifer Higgie celebrates the artist who championed automatism, feminism and the value of other realms.

Ithell Colquhoun was one of the female surrealists whose work belatedly forced André Breton to acknowledge their contribution to the movement. In her 1938 work, Scylla, “Colquhoun refutes herself as a one-dimensional being,’” Higgie says. “She is complex, intellectual, her legs are fleshy and phallic; she’s a landscape, a monster, a sea nymph, a woman. She will not be reduced to a type; her gender is not a one-liner.”

But until the last decade or so, Colquhoun’s legacy was little-known. Now her name is often cited as an influence by contemporary artists, inspired by her “rallying call to automatism” and radical ideas about gender and the environment. “As a female artist unabashed by her sexuality,” Higgie writes, “she was vocal that women must be artistically, emotionally, mythically and sexually empowered. Her work also reiterates that despite our protestations, human beings are more open to different energies than perhaps we realise.”

Across this series of essays, Higgie re-evaluates the influence of spirituality on the art of the past 150 years. Why were women written out of the story? And why are so many artists turning to mysticism now?

Previously the editor of frieze magazine and a judge of the Turner Prize, Jennifer Higgie presents a podcast about women in art history, Bow Down.

Written and presented by Jennifer Higgie

Produced by Chris Elcombe

A Reduced Listening production for BBC Radio 3