Art After Windrush: Postcolonial Art in Britain After 1948
Wednesday 4th May 2022
A detail from Middle Passage, 1970
by Sir Frank Bowling.
Photograph: Courtesy the Artist/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017 published by The Guardian
Barry Venning
This lecture will look at the contributions made by artists of African, Caribbean or Asian origin to British art since the HMT Empire Windrush arrived in Tilbury from the West Indies in 1948. It will consider, among others, the work of Sir Frank Bowling, Francis Newton Souza, Eddie Chambers, Yinka Shonibare, Sonia Boyce, Rasheed Araeen, Lubaina Himid and the Singh Twins, all of whom have achieved international recognition and respect, their works collected by museums world-wide. They may not all be household names but their art is eye-catching and thought-provoking, and they have set much of the agenda for British art of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Barry Venning is an art historian with a particular interest in the work of JMW Turner, on whom he has published widely, including the volume on Turner in Phaidon’s Art & Ideas series. His interests and his teaching extend from medieval architecture to contemporary art. He is currently Associate Lecturer with the Open University and lecturing on a freelance basis for The Arts Society and Christie’s Education.
