Saturday, January 30, 2010

Dark Monarch

The Dark Monarch: Magic and Modernity in British Art is an excellent exhibition exploring the influence of folklore, mysticism, mythology and the occult on the development of art in Britain. It was first displayed at Tate St Ives last year and has now moved to the new Towner gallery in Eastbourne. There are no plans for it to come to London as far as I know, so if you want to see it you will have to take a trip to the south coast before 21 March, when it closes.

The reason I mention it here is because it includes works by a number of visionary artists associated with South London, including in no particular order:

Graham Sutherland, Cray Fields (1920)

(artist studied at Goldsmiths in New Cross)

Derek Jarman, Sulphur (1975)

(one of a series of super 8 films made when he was living on Bankside)

Austin Osman Spare, The Dawn (1920)
(artist lived in Walworth Road)

The Fairy Feller's Masterstroke - Richard Dadd (1864)
(painted in Bedlam asylum, St George's Fields, Southwark)

Samuel Palmer, The Lonely Tower (1979)
(artist grew up in Walworth)

Damien Hirst - The Child's Dream (2008)
(artist studied at Goldsmiths in New Cross)
Well worth a trip to the seaside, these images don't really do justice to the works, for instance the drawing by David Jones includes an incredible amount of detail as does Gadd's painting.

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