The Real Woman

The Real Woman is a colourful example of a series of collages incorporating postcards produced in 1936 while Penrose was staying with Picasso, Man Ray and Eluard in the South of France. The Hungarian Modernist architect Erno Goldfinger (1902-87), and his artist wife, Ursula Ruth Blackwell (1909-91) settled in the artistic centre of Hampstead, designing 2 Willow Road which ranks as one of the pioneering buildings of the Modern Movement. The Goldfingers acquired this work in 1938, at the time the house was being constructed. Penrose, a neighbour of the Goldfingers in Hampstead and close personal friend, was a founder member of the Surrealist movement in England in the 1930s. It was reputedly he who introduced the couple to Henry Moore.