Perverse Albion

NE DOESN’T TEND to utter the words “British” and “Surrealism” in the same breath. “French,” yes, and indeed the Surrealist movement, with its often doctrinaire seriousness, left-oriented politics, and poetic rhetoric, has a decidedly Gallic flavor. However, an exhibition on view at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London (through May 17) takes “British Surrealism” as its very title and brings together over 70 works by 42 artists to make the case that not only did the English produce quite a good number of excellent Surrealist artists, but that there was something inherent in British culture itself that was conducive to Surrealism. The full title of the show is “British Surrealism: 1783–1952,” and the provocative dates should give a clue to the ambitions of its curator, David Boyd Haycock. Alongside artworks by recognized British Surrealists such as