Georgiana Houghton gave up painting after the death of her younger sister Zilla, a talented artist. After visiting a medium in 1859, Houghton was encouraged by Zilla to start painting again. Over the next two decades, under instruction from the spirits of the dead, she produced a series of remarkable abstract watercolours as part of her practice as a medium that she called “spirit drawings.” Their only public exhibition during her lifetime, in 1871, was ridiculed by critics. However, a 2016 exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery, London created a small sensation, and the “spirit drawings” have since been presented at the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), Hobart; Lenbachhaus, Munich; the Wilhelm-Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao; the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; the 59th Venice Biennale.
