Revisiting Modern British Art

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This narrative has rarely been questioned, and it is only very recently, with exhibitions such as Tate Britain's ' Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s–Now' (December 2021 – April 2022) that our major cultural institutions have begun to reassess those artists who have been excluded from the official narrative of countless books and museum trails.

To celebrate Heritage Open Day’s theme of ‘Creativity Unwrapped’ this year, we are exploring Woking’s musical past. From the Atalanta Ballroom to The Jam, Woking has had a rich and creative musical history. Find out more and visit the display in Woking's Story on our first floor. Sophie J Williamson is a curator based in London and Margate. She is initiator and convenor of Undead Matter, an on-going programme focused on the intimacy of being with dying and its dialogue with the geological. From 2013-2021, she was Exhibitions Curator at Camden Art Centre, and was previously part of the inaugural team at Raven Row, (2009–13). The discovery of Soutine’s paintings in the early 1950s was a significant moment for Kossoff, who was already finding his way towards the kind of direct and expressive use of paint he saw in his predecessor’s work. Soutine grew up in Belarus before migrating to Paris as a young man, while Kossoff was born and raised in London, his parents having arrived there from Ukraine as children. Although their life experiences were very different, the two artists shared a Russian Jewish heritage which perhaps brought a particular cultural sensibility to their work. To create transcendent works from the stuff of everyday life became Kossoff’s mission, as it had been Soutine’s.Join us at Tate St Ives for this exciting seminar showcasing new perspectives on modern British art and artists. I'll be at Sotheby's in London on Sunday 20 November, discussing A Sense of Place in Modern British Art with Simon Martin and Frances Christie. Then, on Friday 25 November, I'll be joining Jo Baring and Sara Cooper at Towner, Eastbourne. We'll be going Behind the Scenes of the Museum, which sounds intriguing - I do love a museum store! Join us for a thought-provoking panel discussion with Ravilious-specialist James Russell, director of the Ingram Collection Jo Baring and Towner’s Head of Exhibitions and Collection Sara Cooper to discuss how specific artists, such as Eric Ravilious, provide focal points for collections. Editor Jo Baring (of the Ingram Collection) has brought together an eclectic group of writers, each of whom approaches the subject of modern British art in a different way. So we have Alexandra Harris on artistic responses to World War One, Laura Smith discussing British Surrealism, Simon Martin exploring Queer Pastoral in the 1940s, Laura Freeman on art and the domestic in World War Two, Harriet Baker discussing women artists in St Ives; James Rawlin on British sculpture in the 1950s and Elena Crippa exploring the diverses uses of collage by artists in 1960s London.

Pragya Agarwal is the author of (M)otherhood: On the choices of being a woman in addition to three other widely acclaimed nonfiction books for adults on racism, gender bias and reproductive rights, and a picture book for raising non-racist children. Her latest book, Hysterical: Exploding the myth of gendered emotions was one of The Telegraph’s best big ideas books of 2022, as well as Waterstones and The i newspaper’s best non-fiction of 2022. Pragya is a professor of social inequities, behavioural and data scientist, and founder of a research think-tank investigating gender inequities. I'm sure you've had the experience of watching the film version of a novel you love... and wishing you hadn't. It took me years to see The English Patient, so powerful was my own impression of the story, and I've still never seen The Great Gatsby on screen. I don't know if there's a film of Ulysses or To the Lighthouse out there, but if there is I would sell the telly to avoid watching them. On-screen voices and images tend to overwhelm our own more fragile, imagined versions of character and setting, which in some instances are as precious as real memories. Edited by Jo Baring (Director, The Ingram Collection), with essays by Harriet Baker, Elena Crippa, Aindrea Emelife, Laura Freeman, Alexandra Harris, Simon Martin, Hammad Nasar, James Purdon, James Rawlin, Natalie Rudd, James Russell and Laura Smith.

Join the conversation

Join Alayo Akinkugbe, Simon Martin, Hammad Nasar, James Russell & Tamsin Golding Yee for two panel discussions: Speakers include: Pragya Agarwal, Jody Day, Kerri ní Dochartaigh, Hettie Judah, Holly Slingsby, Lucy Willow and Sophie J Williamson. Please see the speakers' bios for more information. How do we consider narratives about art through experiences of motherhood that include grief and childlessness not by choice? In 1971, Bruce McLean (b.1944) famously performed his Pose Work for Plinths at the Situation Gallery in London, draping himself across a series of white plinths in a manner reminiscent of one of Moore's reclining figures. This is definitely a book to have on the bedside table and dip into repeatedly, not least because it is so beautifully illustrated. Anyone who has ever produced an art book will know that the cost of images can be prohibitive. Well, no expense has been spared here, and the pictures are every bit as lively and eclectic as the text.