Lewis Carroll with Alice 1961

Eileen Agar made this painting of Lewis Carroll with Alice, it’s hard to know when, but look at its collage-like forms and bold colour combinations. Imagine Agar at her easel, layering shapes and patterns to build up the image, a bit like a dream. It seems she starts with a structure in place, and then responds to it intuitively, adjusting and refining until the composition comes together. I bet she loved making this, the combination of abstraction and figuration must have really turned her on! Look at the way she’s divided the faces with blocks of blue, yellow, and green. It reminds me of Picasso, but with a surrealist twist. It’s like she’s saying, "I’m not just going to copy what I see. I’m going to create something new, something that goes beyond the surface." Painters love to look at each other's work, responding and riffing. It's an ongoing conversation across time, and everyone contributes their own unique voice. And that's the beauty of painting: it's always changing, always evolving, and always surprising us.