ACE177.3 (00:08:05 - 00:16:59)
Photograph of Paul Nash. Agar explains that Nash told Herbert Reed and Roland Penrose to visit her studio at Swanage when they were looking for work for an exhibition. Photograph of Agar in her studio. Reed and Penrose immediately identified her as a Surrealist. Paintings and collages, 3-D structures. Agar talks about the response to the Surrealism exhibition; mounted by Reed and Penrose, summer, 1936. Newspaper headlines, photographs of exhibits. Agar describes Dali “coming on to talk in a diving helmet”; photograph of same. Photograph of exhibits including Agar’s Quadriga (1935). Quadriga shown in colour. Agar talking about being accepted as artist, not just a muse for a man. Photograph of woman and pigeons in Trafalgar Square and of participants at the 1936 Surrealist exhibition. Agar believes that she was able to show all over the world as her work was included with that of male artists. Photograph of Joseph Bard. Agar describes their meeting and subsequent relationship. Portrait of Bard. Agar VO describes her painting, The Autobiography of an Embryo (1933-1934). Photographs from a 1937 visit to Picasso’s house in the south of France. Agar relates how Picasso killed a hornet that interrupted a beach picnic. Photographs of Picasso, Agar and others. She tried not to be too influenced by his work. Sculpture, The Angel of Anarchy (1936-1940), based on a plaster cast of Bard; Agar VO says Picasso insisted there would be a war Agar, sitting next to Marine Object, a sculpture from 1939, describes The Angel of Anarchy.

ACE177.4 (00:16:59 - 00:25:46)
Newsfilm of the Blitz and its aftermath. Agar talks of visiting the Canary Islands with Bard. The colours rekindled her desire to paint. Watercolour landscapes, a painting of birds. Agar VO about Nature. Waves breaking on shingle; painting which includes similar shapes. Agar on the beach at Swanage. Her VO talking about the limitations of abstract painting compared with the wildness of Nature. Work influenced by “natural” objects, intercut with shots of the sea. The “cork basket hat” photograph; Agar working on a collage. Examples of her work. Her VO says that she considers her work still to be Surrealist, and that good work requires “playfulness”; she finds it difficult to use her dreams in her work. Agar speaking about the best art requiring both technique and emotion. Agar VO paintings talking about the differences between men’s and women’s art. Agar talking about materialism and not allowing emotions to be lost – “swimming against the tide”. Paintings. Agar says her paintings are “very joyful” because she’s had a very happy life, and the results “show through” in her work. Photograph of Agar dancing on a roof outside Mougins in 1937. Credits.