This Dark Country: Women Artists, Still Life and Intimacy in the Early Twentieth Century
Aug 2021 · Bloomsbury Publishing
Ebook
384
Pages
About this ebook
Shortlisted for the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize 2022
Longlisted for the William M B Berger Prize for British Art History 2022
Guardian Art Book of the Year 2021
A dazzling, boldly original work that tells the powerful and passionate stories of a group of extraordinary women as glimpsed through their still life paintings
What is contained in a still life – and what falls out of the frame? For women artists in the early twentieth century, such as Dora Carrington, Vanessa Bell and Gwen John, this art form was a conduit for their lives, their rebellions, their quietly subversive loves for men and women.
But for every artist whom we remember, there are those whose work is almost forgotten. In This Dark Country, Rebecca Birrell conducts a dazzling fusion of group biography and art criticism, exploring, from the celebrated to the overlooked, the structures of intimacy that make – and dismantle – our worlds.
'A brilliant book ... A truly radical aesthetics fit for the twenty-first century at last!' - Thérèse Oulton
'[A] wonderful book. I am impressed and fascinated. It is beautifully written' - Celia Paul
Longlisted for the William M B Berger Prize for British Art History 2022
Guardian Art Book of the Year 2021
A dazzling, boldly original work that tells the powerful and passionate stories of a group of extraordinary women as glimpsed through their still life paintings
What is contained in a still life – and what falls out of the frame? For women artists in the early twentieth century, such as Dora Carrington, Vanessa Bell and Gwen John, this art form was a conduit for their lives, their rebellions, their quietly subversive loves for men and women.
But for every artist whom we remember, there are those whose work is almost forgotten. In This Dark Country, Rebecca Birrell conducts a dazzling fusion of group biography and art criticism, exploring, from the celebrated to the overlooked, the structures of intimacy that make – and dismantle – our worlds.
'A brilliant book ... A truly radical aesthetics fit for the twenty-first century at last!' - Thérèse Oulton
'[A] wonderful book. I am impressed and fascinated. It is beautifully written' - Celia Paul
Shortlisted for the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize 2022
Longlisted for the William M B Berger Prize for British Art History 2022
Guardian Art Book of the Year 2021
A dazzling, boldly original work that tells the powerful and passionate stories of a group of extraordinary women as glimpsed through ...
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About the author
Rebecca Birrell grew up in Southport, and lives in Cambridge. She studied English Literature at UCL, followed by Women's Studies at the University of Oxford. She has occupied curatorial positions at the Jewish Museum London, the Department of Prints and Drawing at the British Museum and at the Charleston Trust. In 2018 she undertook a fellowship at the Yale Centre for British Art. She completed her PhD at the Edinburgh College of Art. She is a curator in the Department of Paintings, Drawings and Prints at the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge.
Rebecca Birrell grew up in Southport, and lives in Cambridge. She studied English Literature at UCL, followed by Women's Studies at the University of Oxford. She has occupied curatorial positions at the Jewish Museum London, the Department of Prints and Drawing at the British Museum and at the Ch...
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