Entangled Histories of British Art

Changing Landscapes for British Art will reflect on the idea of British art and its boundaries, borders and parameters during the past fifty years; how they are gradually shifting and what this might mean for future thinking in the field. Is the idea of Britishness (or indeed any national school of art) still a useful one? What do we gain by defining art in national terms and what would we lose if we chose to rethink it? And how could it be re-thought? These questions and others will be explored in a reflection on the non-synchronous trajectories of Black British art and the role of the Paul Mellon Centre in the past, present and future of the field.

Image caption: Veronica Ryan, Entanglement, 2019, tea dyed pillowcase, thread, seeds, pen, 29 1/2 x 12 1/2 x 4 in. © Veronica Ryan. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York

Speaker Biographer:

Dorothy Price is Professor of History of Art at the University of Bristol and Editor of Art History journal. She was a founding member and the inaugural Director of the Centre for Black Humanities at the University of Bristol and is widely published in the fields of Black British Art and German modernism. She is currently working with artist Sonia Boyce RA OBE on a special issue of Art History devoted to Black Artists and Modernism and with Imogen Hart (Berkeley) on a special issue entitled British Art and the Global. Together with British painter, Chantal Joffe she recently co-produced Personal Feeling is the Main Thing, an exhibition and book about Joffe's work in dialogue with German artist Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907). Current projects include a commission from Spike Island to write about sculptor Veronica Ryan for her forthcoming Freedlands Award commission and work with the Royal Academy and Kunstmuseum den Haag for a forthcoming exhibition of expressionist women.

Event Timings

18.00-19.00 Lecture

19.00-19.30 Q&A

19.30-20.00 Drinks reception