Art, culture & history images

Dr. Sherwin owns the largest collection of British surrealist art in the country – more than 250 pieces, including works by Conroy Maddox, John Banting, Leonora Carrington and Eileen Agar.

Unlike its French forerunner, the British surrealist movement has been largely unpromoted until now and most of these names are not as familar as their foreign counterparts. 

Following an interview with Dr. Sherwin and profiles earlier this year on Tristam Hillier and John Armstrong, we hope that this gap in 20th century British Modern Art is being addressed. It is also notable that Dr. Sherwin collects the work of female surrealist artists and has a strong collection of 1950's British art.

Although a GP by profession, Dr. Sherwin was also a Leeds City Councillor and responsible for the conception and building of the Henry Moore Sculpture Gallery.

An exhibition of British Surrealism at Leeds City Art Gallery in 1986 inspired Dr. Sherwin to start collecting, and through lending his artworks to major galleries, he has become the movement's greatest evangelist.

A small selection of his works is currently featuring in Another World: Dali, Magritte, Miro And The Surrealists at the Dean Gallery in Edinburgh until 09 January 2011.  

View the entire Sherwin Collection

Dr. Sherwin on the year British Surrealism hit the headlines: 

'1936 was an interesting year!'

'Although surrealism took root in England in the late 1920s, 1936 is considered a watershed with the First International Surrealist Exhibition at the New Burlington Galleries. '

Organised primarily by Roland Penrose, David Gascoyne and Herbert Read - with the help of French surrealists such as Breton and Eluard - it featured work by Dalí, Míro and Ernst, as well as a number of British artists. 

Max Ernst designed the poster of which one is part of the Sherwin collection (see image on left).

'1936 was also the year of the Spanish Civil War,  the year of the hunger marches, the year of Edward VIII’s abdication and the year I was born.' 

'In the collection there is a 1937 Andre Masson drawing, Mass at Pamplona with the Bishop of Pamplona as a donkey handing out a communion wafer stamped with a Swastika. Ephemera includes a bound copy of the daily Olympia Zeitung charting the infamous 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.' 

'Also notable is the Hopton Wood stone Spanish Head, 1939, by FE McWilliam, an Irish surrealist sculptor, and a framed copy of the Daily Express of December 11 1936 headlining the King Abdicates, followed by ’ Plain Mr Windsor’.'