In anticipation of the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, this exhibition features the work of a generation of artists who rose to prominence in post-war Britain.
The figurative art of the 40s and 50s abounds with allusions to the trauma of conflict from Francis Bacon’s use of Nazi imagery to the Holocaust references in Graham Sutherland’s ‘Crucifixion’. In 1952, the work of a group of young British sculptors including Lynn Chadwick, Kenneth Armitage and Bernard Meadows – was dubbed ‘geometry of fear’, referring to its iconography of despair, or defiance. Elisabeth Frink’s predatory birds were inspired by her experiences of battle airfields in Suffolk. Throughout the 50s, Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff dedicated themselves to a series of paintings of London building sites, many of which had been occasioned by bombing raids during the Blitz. Others, such as Merlyn Evans, made direct references to their wartime experiences.
Other artists include: John Bratby, Reg Butler, Prunella Clough, Robert Colquhoun, Derrick Greaves, Lucian Freud, Elisabeth Frink, Josef Herman, Patrick Heron, L.S. Lowry, Robert MacBryde, Edward Middleditch, John Minton, Eduardo Paolozzi, Ceri Richards,Jack Smith, William Turnbull, Keith Vaughan
Admission to the gallery is free.
Gallery opening times are as follows: Monday-Saturday 11am-5pm. Sundays 12noon-4pm.