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Rosaleen Norton – the fabulous, one-and-only ‘Witch of Kings Cross’

Rosaleen Norton, dubbed ‘The Witch of Kings Cross’ was a witch, artist, writer and philosopher from the 1930s until her death in 1979. Possessed of an acute intellect, Rosaleen studied and affected a personal and complex system of polytheism, trance magic, and sex magick, which was characterised and caricatured as ‘witchcraft’ and, sometimes, as ‘satanism’ by the Australian popular press.

Let Marguerite Johnson take you on a magical, witchy (broomstick) ride as she discusses Rosaleen – or Roie – and her wonderful legacy on popular and esoteric cultures through her occult and trance-induced art and her enduring dedication to an occult life. Marguerite will also discuss some of the scandals surrounding Roie, and the intense police and media scrutiny, which sometimes led to arrests, court cases and prosecutions.

In this lavishly illustrated talk, Marguerite not only shares the story of her own fascination with Roie, which began in childhood, but also some lesser-known archival material from her personal collection.

This special talk coincides with the exhibition – Four Witches & a Warlock: Magickal Art by Rosaleen Norton, Ithell Colquhoun, Madge Gill, Leonora Carrington & Austin Osman Spare – at The Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & Natural History (Oct 01st 2024 – March 9, 2025)

Bio

Marguerite Johnson is a cultural historian of the ancient Mediterranean, specialising in sexuality and gender, particularly in the poetry of Sappho, Catullus, and Ovid, as well as magical traditions in Greece, Rome, and the Near East. She also researches Classical Reception Studies, with a regular focus on Australia. In addition to ancient world studies, Marguerite is interested in sexual histories in modernity as well as magic in the west more broadly, especially the practices and art of Australian witch, Rosaleen Norton. She is Honorary Professor of Classics and Ancient History at The University of Queensland, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

The Other Side: A Journey into Women, Art and the Spirit World

It’s not so long ago that a woman’s expressed interest in other realms would have ruined her reputation, or even killed her. And yet spiritualism, in various incarnations, has influenced numerous men – including lauded modernist artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Kazimir Malevich and Paul Klee – without repercussion. The fact that so many radical women artists of their generation – and earlier – also drank deeply from the same spiritual well has for too long been sorely neglected.

Jennifer Higgie will talk about her book – THE OTHER SIDE, and explore the lives and work of a group of extraordinary women, from the twelfth-century mystic, composer and artist Hildegard of Bingen to the nineteenth-century English spiritualist Georgiana Houghton, whose paintings swirl like a cosmic Jackson Pollock; the early twentieth-century Swedish artist, Hilma af Klint, who painted with the help of her spirit guides and whose recent exhibition at New York’s Guggenheim broke all attendance records; the ‘Desert Transcendentalist’, Agnes Pelton, who painted her visions beneath the vast skies of California; the Swiss healer, Emma Kunz, who used geometric drawings to treat her patients; and the British surrealist and occultist, Ithell Colquhoun, whose estate of more than 5,000 works recently entered the Tate gallery collection. While the individual work of these artists is unique, the women loosely shared the same goal: to communicate with, and learn from, other dimensions.

Weaving in and out of these myriad lives, sharing her own memories of otherworldly experiences, Jennifer Higgie discusses the solace of ritual, the gender exclusions of art history, the contemporary relevance of myth, the boom in alternative ways of understanding the world and the impact of spiritualism on feminism and contemporary art. A radical reappraisal of a marginalised group of artists, THE OTHER SIDE is an intoxicating blend of memoir, biography and art history.

Bio

Jennifer Higgie is an Australian writer who lives in London. Previously the editor of frieze magazine, and the presenter of Bow Down, a podcast about women in art history, she is the author and illustrator of the children’s book ‘There’s Not One’; the editor of ‘The Artist’s Joke’ and author of the novel ‘Bedlam’, about the 19th century fairy painter Richard Dadd. Her book on women’s self-portraits, ‘The Mirror & The Palette: Rebellion, Revolution & Resistance, 500 Years of Women’s Self Portraits’, was published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in March 2021. ‘The Other Side: Women, Art and the Spirit World’, is published 2 February 2023.

Jennifer has been a judge of the Paul Hamlyn Award, the Turner Prize and the John Moore’s Painting Prize. She also writes screenplays and her paintings are in collections in Australia. She is also the host of ‘Artist’s Artists’ a new podcast for the National Gallery of Australia.

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day