{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O127197"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O127197/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2014HC9521/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2014HC9521/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"low","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2014HC9521","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":null},"record":{"systemNumber":"O127197","accessionNumber":"CIRC.279-1972","objectType":"Collage","titles":[{"title":"Elephant Bird","type":"assigned by artist"}],"summaryDescription":"Roland Penrose (1900-1984) was a British artist, collector and camouflage expert. He was a major organiser of the Surrealist group in Britain, co-organising the 1936 London International Surrealist Exhibition and co-founding the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in 1946. He was married to the poet Valentine Boué and later to the Surrealist photographer Lee Miller. This work is an early example of Penrose’s postcard collages, a method he developed in 1938. Surrealist collage had been pioneered by the Penrose’s friend, Max Ernst, who he met in Paris in 1928. In 1939, in issue 17 of the Surrealist periodical London Bulletin, the Belgian Surrealists René Magritte and Paul Paul Nougé argued that Penrose’s method took Ernst’s technique to a new stage of development by using images to create colour.\r\n\r\nIn this collage, a giant bird is made up of a complex accumulation of found objects and images, including postcards of the Eiffel Tower and Sacre Couer in Paris which evoke a sense of travel and freedom which was threatened by the coming of World War Two, and a map of Catalonia, perhaps a reference to the Artist’s support of the Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War. Penrose appropriates an original watercolour painting by the nineteenth-century landscape artist William Cowen, which becomes the background from which Penrose’s strange creature emerges, subverting the function of the traditional painting. ","physicalDescription":"Collage depicting a giant bird. In the lower section of the composition, an original watercolour painting by the artist William Cowen, signed and dated ‘W Cowen 1851’, is fixed to a grey background. This painting depicts a traditional landscape garden including a classical building, manicured trees and plants and a river with a rowing boat and ducks. The bird figure emerges from this image and is layered on top. The body of the bird consists of ten cut-up postcards of the Eiffel Tower. It’s left wing is made of a torn piece of orange paper and two postcards depicting the Sacre Couer. The right wing is drawn on a piece of cream paper in pencil with vertical lines resembling feathers. The head of the bird is outlined by a loop of cut-paper on which a painted texture has been produced through decalcomania, a technique by which paint is pressed together between two sheets of paper. Within this loop is a piece of black and white printed paper showing a natural texture. Layered on top are two egg-shaped black pieces of paper resembling eyes. The bird’s plumage is suggested by a coloured map of Catalonia, Spain. Below the right wing of the bird, a piece of string is glued to the composition in a spiral formation, encircling a pointed piece of Eiffel Tower postcard. \r\n\r\n\r\n","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Penrose, Roland","id":"A17943"},"association":{"text":"artist","id":"AAT25103"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"cardboard","id":"AAT14224"},{"text":"string","id":"AAT14249"},{"text":"glue","id":"AAT14815"},{"text":"paper (fiber product)","id":"AAT14109"},{"text":"watercolour (paint)","id":"AAT15045"},{"text":"pencil","id":"x30347"}],"techniques":[{"text":"collage","id":"AAT138699"},{"text":"watercolour painting","id":"THES250889"},{"text":"decalcomania","id":"AAT53426"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Collage; paper; postcards; map; string; watercolour painting; drawing; decalcomania","categories":[{"text":"Collages","id":"THES49040"},{"text":"Surrealism","id":"THES285500"}],"styles":[{"text":"Surrealist","id":"AAT21512"}],"collectionCode":{"text":"PDP","id":"THES48595"},"images":["2014HC9521"],"imageResolution":"low","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"WS","id":"THES49603"},"free":"","case":"R","shelf":"70","box":"R"}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"collages","id":"AAT33963"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Great Britain","id":"x32019"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1938","earliest":"1938-01-01","latest":"1938-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Acquired from the Artist in 1972.","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"80","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"54.3","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Height","value":"98.3","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"Framed","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"75.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"Framed","note":""},{"dimension":"Depth","value":"2.1","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"Framed","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"Unframed dimensions from PDP catalogue","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"Signed and dated lower left in pencil 'R Penrose ' 38'. Along lower edge to right lower corner a watercolour signed and dated 'W Cowen 1851'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":""}],"objectHistory":"","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Collage, Elephant Bird, by Roland Penrose, string and paper, 1938.","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Taken from Departmental Circulation Register 1972"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Penrose, Antony. Roland Penrose: The Friendly Surrealist. Munich: Prestel, 2001."}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"Unique","id":"THES48864"},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[{"text":"Paris","id":"x29068"}],"associatedPlaces":[{"text":"Sacre Coeur","id":"x40466"},{"text":"Eiffel Tower","id":"x37477"}],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"Eiffel tower","id":"x39434"},{"text":"Sacre Coeur","id":"x40020"}],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["CIRC.279-1972"],"accessionNumberNum":"279","accessionNumberPrefix":"CIRC","accessionYear":1972,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-05-29","recordCreationDate":"2006-08-16","availableToBook":false}}