Emmy Bridgwater studied at Birmingham School of Art (1926– 27), Oxford School of Art and Grosvenor School of Modern Art, London, under lain MacNab (1890–1967). 

She joined the British Surrealist Group in 1940 and was a founding member of the Birmingham Surrealist Group, contributing significant pieces to the movement in subsequent years. Like many female Surrealists, Bridgwater focused on recreating myths and fairy tales as seen from a female perspective, in a distinctly Surrealist exploration of the strange and empowerment of the feminine. 

After a brief affair with Toni del Renzio (1915–2007) at the start of WWII, her first solo exhibition was held in 1942 at the Modern Art Gallery, London, and she also exhibited at the 1947 International Surrealist Exhibition at the Galerie Maeght in Paris, as well as with the LG, at the AIA and Brook Street Art Gallery, and she later contributed to frequent Surrealist revival exhibitions which toured Britain in the 1970s and 1980s.

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