Wot! No Art? - ACE081.4

St Matthew’s Church, Northampton, where Canon Walter Hussey commissioned Madonna and Child (1944) by Henry Moore and The Crucifixion (1946) by Graham Sutherland. Commentary points out that commissions such as these are rare and that large-scale works are more often found in museums than in public places. Post-war purchases by the Tate Gallery: Origins of the Land (Sutherland, 1951), Trafalgar Square (Ceri Richards, 1950), Girl with a White Dog (Lucian Freud, 1951-1952), Street and Railway Bridge (John Minton, 1946), Eduardo Paolozzi’s Two Forms on a Rod (1948-1949), Jacob Epstein’s Lucifer (1944-1945) in Birmingham City Art Gallery: Commentary identifies the issue of whether or not contemporary art should "be part of people’s daily environment". People going to work in industrial town. Coal mine. Scenes of nationalisation events (January 1st, 1947). Three paintings by Josef Herman, a rare example of an artist coming from a working-class community. Scenes during the severe winter of 1946-1947 which caused breakdown in coal distribution; subsequent floods. Industrial scenes, shipyards, etc.; women queuing for food; house-building. Prototype mass-produced houses of different designs – Orlit, BISF, Airey, etc. – an experiment which failed because the market was insufficiently centralised to keep costs down. Commentary suggests that "… no truly progressive society can afford to repress the individual’s need to be different". Woman talking about personalising her house as she "wouldn’t want it like everybody else’s". Interior of pre-fab where owners, Mr and Mrs England, show off all the models and other ornaments they’ve made themselves. Commentary asks whether "if everyone created things in their spare time … they’d understand modern art any better". Newsreel coverage of Institute of Contemporary Art’s 1948 exhibition, "Forty Years of Modern Art"; commentary says that the ICA had little state support for its activities. "There was no room in English society for the modern artist." Paintings: art galleries were the only places such work could be seen; most artists survived by teaching. Newsreel coverage of 1950 exhibition of miner-artists’ work in London’s West End.