British Art before, during, and after Bacon and Freud
Presented by Derrick Cartwright and Hugh Davies
Wednesday, March 3; 6:30 PM
Individual tickets: $14/19
Join us for a three-part lecture series on British Art that will be jointly presented by Hugh Davies and Derrick Cartwright.
This series looks at a broad swath of British art from the late Victorian era up to the present day. The focus of these talks, however, will be the distinct legacies of Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud. Friends, and later rivals, Bacon and Freud drew selectively on the prior achievements of British painters and sculptors, from Walter Sickert and Wyndham Lewis to Barbara Hepworth and Jacob Epstein. Largely defying the critical expectations of their period, these artists produced shocking representations and lived unconventional lives, sometimes drawing as much attention to themselves for their outrageous behavior as for their work. In this way, they proved to be durable models for the current generation of artists throughout the UK.
The first lecture will consist of a fast-paced overview of turn-of-the-century art in England. Starting with conventional painters, like John Singer Sargent and Gwen Johns, we will consider the roots of Modern English pictorial excess. The devastating experiences of WWI and WWII will be an important focus, and the celebrated careers of Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson, and their contemporaries loom large in the cultural formation of the next generation of creative figures. Stanley Spencer is especially important in this regard, and, while they rarely acknowledged his influence, both Bacon and Freud can be usefully compared to Spencer’s example.
The lectures will be livestreamed via Zoom webinar. Ticket holders will receive a link before the first lecture. Following each lecture, ticket holders will have 48-hour access to a recording.