A exhibition of works by surrealist artists created in 1930s experiments under the influence of hallucinogens opens in Croydon just over a month from now.

Brilliant visions, at the Bethlem Museum of the Mind, presents drawings and paintings by artists who took part in experiments run by two psychiatrists at Maudsley Hospital 89 years ago.

Dr Eric Guttman and Dr Walter Maclay invited professional artists from the surrealist movement to participate in studies involving the drug mescaline, a naturally occurring psychedelic, giving them the opportunity to delve into the irrational, unconscious mind for creative inspiration.

Co-curated by Mike Jack, author of Mescaline: A Global History of the First Psychedelic, the exhibition provides an insight into the first era of research into psychedelics and mental states.

“Long before the psychedelic era of the 1960s, experiments with mescaline were creating dazzling fusions of science, art and visionary experience," Mike Jay said.

"The Guttman-Maclay archives offer fascinating glimpses into previously unexplored regions of the mind.”

Your Local Guardian:

A mescaline portrait

The artistic depictions of the hallucinations – which ranged from ecstatic to terrifying – were understood by the psychiatrists as illustrations of psychopathic states, and used as tools for analysis and classification.

Some artists depicted tangible objects such as snakes, clocks and menacing portraits, or simply used their chosen medium to make brightly coloured marks that radiated with energy.

Julian Trevelyan was a founding member of the British Surrealists, teaching artists such as David Hockney at the Royal College of Art and mingling with Picasso and Miró.

His black pen drawings on mescaline featured geometric, ‘kite-like’ shapes. He wrote later that once the drug took effect, “I could not put a line wrong…Perspectives and recessions dripped off my pencil”.

During the 1930s psychiatrists across Europe used mescaline in experiments with other artists, writers, and philosophers. Jean Paul-Sartre and Walter Benjamin both participated in sessions of this kind.

In 1932 the Romanian neurologist Georghe Marinescu conducted similar trials with artists, including the celebrated modernist painter Corneliu Michaelescu.

This year marks a century since mescaline was first synthesised in a laboratory in Vienna.

In the 1950s it became a public sensation after the psychiatrist Humphry Osmond administered it to Aldous Huxley, who then wrote about it in his bestselling book The Doors of Perception. Osmond and Huxley coined the term ‘psychedelic’ to describe it.

During the 1950s it was largely replaced in scientific research by LSD, and by the end of the 1960s both substances had been made illegal. In recent years research into psychedelics has resumed, providing new insights into the workings of the brain and exploring their therapeutic potential for depression, PTSD and end of life care.

For more information visit the Bethlem Museum of the Mind website: https://museumofthemind.org.uk/