The Age of Turmoil

“Here’s a seaside show with a difference”
The Sunday Times

The Age of Turmoil: Burra, Spencer, Sutherland featured three ground-breaking Modern British artists: Edward Burra (1905-1976), Stanley Spencer (1891-1959), and Graham Sutherland (1903-1980). The works on display, painted between the mid-1930s and the late 1950s, share a sense of the anxiety, discomfort and fear that many people felt during this turbulent time.

Graham Sutherland and Stanley Spencer served as official war artists during World War II as official war artists; Spencer had also served during World War I in the Royal Army Medical Corps in Macedonia. Edward Burra’s severe rheumatoid arthritis meant that he was unable to serve during WWII, but his hometown of Rye became a centre for military activity, and soldiers and the horrors of war featured heavily in his paintings during this period.

Hastings Contemporary would like to thank Daniel Katz and his team for their generous, intelligent and open approach to the development of this exhibition, and Southampton City Art Gallery, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, the Ingram Collection, and the private lenders who have generously loaned their work.  We would also like to thank our trustee Nicholas Maclean for all his work on this exhibition.

#AgeOfTurmoil

Main image: Edward Burra (1905-1976), War in the Sun, 1938, watercolour on paper © Estate of the Artist, c/o Lefevre Fine Art Ltd., London. Artwork courtesy Daniel Katz Gallery.