Talking Books: Revisiting Modern British Art

 

This time last year I was busy writing the introductory essay for a remarkable book. Revisiting Modern British Art is not a traditional art history book, being neither a historical survey nor a study of a particular artist or group. Rather, as the title suggests, it is a book which revisits a familiar period and seeks to understand it differently. Each of the writers brings their own expertise and experience, individual qualities they use to explore the subject in new and fascinating ways. The effect is kaleidoscopic and inspiring in a way few art books are. 

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.

This first group are clustered into a section subtitled Moments, which is followed by Structures. While James Purdon examines the role of corporate and public patronage in modern British art, Jo Baring explores the part played by curators and collectors. Hammad Nasar asks searching questions about artistic Britishness, Natalie Rudd teases out relationships between contemporary artists and their predecessors and Aindrea Emelife makes a personal call for a more expansive British art.

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.

Over the next few weeks Jo will be presiding over a series of events, in which she will discuss the book with a number of her fellow contributors. You can find info about all of these on the Ingram Collection website. 

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!

You can find info and tickets for these events via the links above - hope to see you there!

 

'Romantic Moderns' and 'England in Particular'

Hooray for the book judges at The Guardian! 'Romantic Moderns' is a wonderful book, both academic and readable. It's going to come as a bit of a shock to some art lovers when they unwrap it on Christmas Day - a light, post-turkey read it is not - but such is the way of things in the book world that 'Romantic Moderns' is set to be this year's 'John and Myfanwy'...

So the rehabilitation of interwar English art and culture continues, and what a curious business it is. Who could have predicted a decade ago that everyone and their aunt would be banging on about John Piper as we shuffle through the snow towards the end of 2010?

When I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s the only home-grown artist of that period who seemed relevant was Paul Nash, who at least made the effort to add bizarre extraneous objects to his Dorset scenes.

It's interesting that the success of 'Romantic Moderns' should coincide with a BBC series about German art. Learning rudimentary art history at school, circa 1982, I don't recall a single German artist getting a mention. Art was Italian (Renaissance), then British (Gainsborough, Stubbs, Turner), then French (Impressionists and after), then Spanish (Picasso and Dali), then American (Jack the Dripper, Rauschenberg, Warhol).

My subsequent discovery of a book of Expressionist art was a revelation, partly because of the work included, but also because it showed the bias in my education.

A similar thing happened when I first came across Common Ground, the charity that achieved widespread recognition with the 2006 tome 'England in Particular'. For two decades before that, Sue Clifford and Angela King had been campaigning with passion and ingenuity on behalf of the local and distinctive, launching Apple Day in 1990 to draw attention to the plight of our orchards and apple varieties. In 'England in Particular' they wrote:

The land is our great creation. Underpinned by nature, it is a physical thing and an invisible web. It is held together by stone walls and swallows, Northumbrian smallpipes and Swaledale sheep, Devon lanes and Fenland skies, Diwali and 'obby 'osses, round barrows and cooling towers, high streets and Ham stone, dew ponds and dialects.

Reading this, I saw that I had been living with a prejudice for years, if not for ever - a prejudice that equates the local with the parochial. The word 'English' conjured visions of old ladies sipping tea in National Trust tearooms. Englishness itself was a branch of the heritage industry, and of no intellectual importance - when I studied modern literature in the early 1990s we studied no English author later than DH Lawrence.

'Romantic Moderns' and 'England in Particular' are very different books - the latter is ideal for post-prandial browsing - but they share common ground. Both are inclusive, generous and wide-ranging. Both seek to broaden our view of this country's culture, allowing us to enjoy and appreciate our surroundings and the art of those surroundings.