#GetToKnow surrealist artist Eileen Agar, who was born #OnThisDay in 1899. 🖌️ Agar was born in Buenos Aires, and described her childhood as being 'full of balloons, hoops and St Bernard dogs.' She later studied art at the Slade School in London before moving to Paris, where she was befriended by the artists Pablo Picasso, Henry Moore, Man Ray, the novelist Evelyn Waugh and the poet Ezra Pound. On her return to London, Agar was hailed as an important figure by the new surrealist movement. Her work at that time included collage and sculpture which incorporated found objects. Later in her career, Agar started using acrylic paint. She liked its ease of handling, the speed with which it dried and the fact that it was a new medium: 'After four hundred years of oil painting, I felt artists should move on to something else. It was a period of constant experiment, of testing the effects of new pigments, new colour combinations. In acrylics, I had found what I considered to be an ideal medium, and I wanted both to master it and to stretch it.' Eileen Agar took so many photographs while traveling that she also became admired for her photography. For the artist, taking photos was like keeping a diary. She described them as ‘a look at my life’. Scroll to see some of Agar's photographs, which were donated to Tate after the artist died in 1991, aged 91. 🖼️ Agar's painting 'Figures in a Garden' 1979–81, is currently on loan @mead_gallery. 📸 Photograph of Eileen Agar 1937 🐱 Photograph of Bella the cat sitting up 1936 🌳 Photograph of a beached tree 1936 ⛱️ Photograph of Pablo Picasso on the beach 1937 🪨 Photograph of rocks in Ploumanach 1936