Art Appreciation: British Modern Art from the Newlyn School to the Festival of Britain

This course aims to deepen your understanding of the history of British art, from 1880 to the 1950s, from Stanhope Forbes and Margaret MacDonald to Eileen Agar and John Piper.

We will take a chronological approach and study successive movements and groups:

• The Newlyn school

• The Glasgow boys

• The Camden Town group

• The Bloomsbury group

• Vorticism

• British surrealism, and more

Some significant individuals will be studied in greater depths, such as Walter Sickert, Laura Knight, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, and Paul Nash. Other, lesser-known artists will also come into focus, such as Edward Wadsworth and Marlow Moss.

Specific themes will also be discussed, such as the roles given to art and artists during the First and Second World Wars; the role of the Royal Academy in a changing artistic landscape; the dialogue with Paris and the rest of the world; the role and place of women artists in Britain; the importance of the landscape.