Georgiana Houghton was a nineteenth-century spiritualist and medium who made art under the alleged influence of otherworldly beings. Her work fell into obscurity, but was recently rediscovered and re-evaluated as a precursor to twentieth-century abstraction.
Houghton’s ‘spirit drawings’ are small, intimate and mesmerisingly exquisite, with swirling streaks of colour that overlap to form wild, spirographic latticeworks. They’re psychedelic visions of divinity, with titles such as ‘The Eye of God’, and quite astounding when you consider the staid, mid-Victorian milieu in which Houghton was working.
In handwritten text on the reverse of each watercolour, Houghton explained the imagery and symbolism, or named her spirit guides (archangels, Renaissance painters). The sheer, almost hallucinatory level of detail is captivating. The gallery even provides magnifying glasses for up-close inspection – a trick copied from the British artist’s only show during her lifetime, in London in 1871. That exhibition left her financially ruined. The 22 pieces at the Courtauld constitute much of her surviving work, and are an absolute must-see.