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• Introduction
• International Surrealism
• British Surrealism and Beyond
• Augustus Lunn
• Patrick Hughes
• Clive Barker
• Peter Bettany
• Information for Teachers

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Surrealist Art: Objects and Meanings

Clive Barker

Barker’s witty juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated parts derive partly from the irony of Marcel Duchamp’s readymades of the 1910’s and 1920’s but what immediately springs to mind is Salvador Dali’s Lobster Telephone of 1936. (Tate Gallery collection.) Behind the laughter lies the Surrealists long traditon of forcing a fresh view of reality by startling us out of our visual complacency.

Clive Baker was born in Luton and studied at Luton College of Technology and Art. After working at Vauxhall Motors he began to make objects in 1962 and became tutor at maidstone College of Art in 1965.

Two other surrealist works of Barker's can be seen online at the Tate Gallery, (Splash 1967 and homage to Magritte, 1969) both of which display his Surrealist influence.