Ithell Colquhoun studied at Cheltenham Art School and the Slade School of Fine Art (allegedly, its youngest ever female student), winning the 1929 summer composition prize. Her early large-scale classical/biblical figure compositions challenged traditional female roles. She had her first solo show in Cheltenham in 1936. Her interest in Surrealism developed in Paris and she joined the British Surrealist group in 1939 but was expelled in 1940 owing to a conflicting interest in the Occult, although Surrealist influences remained important in her work. From 1957 she lived in Cornwall and exhibited frequently with the WIAC. The title of her Potentate II suggests an autocratic ruler and apparently fuses male and female attributes, drawing on Dadaism and the Occult.