Surrealist artist and writer, born Sussex, married to the painter Reuben Mednikoff, also known as Ricky Pailthorpe. She served as a surgeon in World War I, worked as a district medical officer in Western Australia, 1918–22, returned to England to study psychological medicine, published books on delinquency and set up what eventually became the Portman Clinic, for its treatment. Met Mednikoff in 1935, and they embarked on a life study of psychological art research. Automatism was the key to their art theory and practice. In the 1930s Pailthorpe contributed to main Surrealist shows, but she fell out with the British Surrealist group in late 1930s, having published The Scientific Aspect of Surrealism in 1938, being expelled two years later. Continued to paint and research until her death.