This talk by internationally renowned scholar of Surrealism Professor Patricia Allmer will discuss the significance of witches and witchcraft in post-war surrealist art by Germanophone women artists. Focussing on how and why women artists adopted, transformed, and re-assigned magical and ritual practices into aesthetic styles, forms, and systems, the talk will explore a range of specific works by artists including the Swiss Meret Oppenheim, the Austrians Renate Bertlmann and Birgit Jürgenssen, and the Germans Valeska Gert, Ursula, and Unica Zürn (whose first publication, a collection of drawings and anagram-poems, was titled Hexentexte or Witches’ Writings). Speaker’s Bio Patricia Allmer is Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History at the University of Edinburgh. Her contribution to art history and her long-term international scholarly impact on the study of women artists and surrealism have been recognised by awards including a Philip Leverhulme Prize (2010) and an Association for Art History Fellowship (2023).