Georgiana Houghton

Born in 1814 Las Palmas ~ Died 1884 in London

Georgiana Houghton developed skills as a medium after attending her first séance in 1859 and achieved her first mediumistic drawings in 1861. For the next decade, under the guidance of a spirit called Lenny followed by master painters and 70 Archangels, she produced over 155 extraordinary watercolour spirit drawings. Most of these have been lost, hopefully awaiting rediscovery. Of the 46 that have survived only three are in private hands such as this one with the majority in the collections of spiritualist societies. The College of Psychic Studies, formerly known as the London Spiritualist Alliance, have 7 and around 35 have been preserved by the Victorian Spiritualist Union in Melbourne. One forms part of the Bruno Decharme donation of Art Brut to the Pompidou in Paris.

Houghton was delighted with her new gift and began each piece without preconception of the outcome. She filled each sheet of paper with woven swirls of vibrant colours forming an abstract and harmonious layering of hues and tints that were a completely different method to anything she had experienced in her art training. Houghton described them as “quite marvellous, the petals being seen through one another, while at the same time possessing a richness and brilliancy which filled me with more delight as each drawing was done”.

Amongst her circle of friends and fellow Spiritualists she soon became recognised as a pioneer of spirit art with Anna Howitt Watts and Elizabeth Wilkinson. Others such as Barbara Honywood, Catherine Berry and Alice Pery followed demonstrating that in England it was women who led the field of spirit inspired art.

To reach a wider audience and hopefully inspire others to become Spiritualists and develop their own gift as spirit artists, Georgiana single-handedly mounted a solo exhibition which took place from May-September in 1871 at the New British Gallery in Old Bond Street, London. The exhibition attracted many visitors, some of whom were shocked by the previously unseen abstract forms. Although the show was applauded by several traditional artists, it generally received mixed reviews. By the end of the exhibition only one sale had been made, possibly because the work was seen as too modern and otherworldly for the tastes of Victorian England.

For more information on Georgiana please visit our sister website Georgiana Houghton devoted to this incredible artist.

Selected Exhibitions:

1871 Exhbition of Spirt Drawings ~ New British Gallery, London
1996 Spirit and place: Art in Australia 1861-1996 ~ Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
2013 Madge Gill: Medium & Visionary ~ Orleans House Gallery, London
2016 Georgiana Houghton Spirit Drawings ~ Courtauld Gallery, London
2016 Encounters with the Spirit World ~ The College of Psychic Studies, London
2017 Museum of Everything #7 ~ MONA, Tasmania
2018 Virginia Woolf ~ Tate St Ives, Cornwall; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge and Pallant House Gallery, Chichester
2019 Floral Fantasies ~ William Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen
2019 World Receivers ~ Lenbachhaus, Munich
2020 Not Without My Ghosts ~ Drawing Room, London
2021 Women in Abstraction ~ Pompidou, Paris and Guggenheim, Bilbao
2022 Milk of Dreams ~ Venice Biennale
2022 Creative Spirits ~ The College of Psychic Studies, London
2023 Judy Chicago: City of Ladies ~ New Museum, New York
2025 Tranceducers ~ Great Pulteney Street Gallery, London
2025 Ghosts: Visualising the Supernatural ~ Kunstmuseum, Basel