ART FOR EVERYDAY LIFE TALK 1

RECORDING BRITAIN IN TOWN & COUNTRY

Wed 27 Nov, 2–3pm

At the Museum and Online

This event takes place in-person at the Museum, and online via Zoom.

With Peter Vass, Fellow of Oxford Brookes University

Some of the best 20th-century British pictorial art was not found in museums and galleries, but on tanker lorries and in underground stations.

In a series of three talks, Peter Vass shows how artists like Piper, Ravilious, Sutherland and the Nash brothers became involved in commercial and government-funded projects to record landscape and life in Britain, bringing art out of the galleries and onto the High Street as part of everyday life.

Kimmeridge Folly from The Shell Guide To Britain, painting by Paul Nash

Paul Nash, Kimmeridge Folly, Dorset, To Visit Britain's Landmarks – You can be sure of Shell, 1937 © Shell Brands International AG. Image from Shell Heritage Art Collection, The Hague

Companies like Shell were making places much better known to people by using artists' representations of landscape and life to advertise their products.

However, it was a countryside under threat not only by modernisation but by the threat of war. This produced a unique project to record people and places at the time. This talk examines the art resulting from these efforts to record life in pre-war Britain.

This is the first talk in the Art for Everyday Life series led by Peter Vass.

Part of our Change Makers season of events.