Refiguring the 50s: Joan Eardley, Sheila Fell, Eva Frankfurther, Josef Herman and L S Lowry
This exhibition examines the work of five figurative artists working in Britain in the 1950s, who each had a strong identification with the place in which they chose to live and work and which formed, for a significant part of their careers, the primary focus of their practice. Each associated themselves with a particular place: Eardley - Townhead in Glasgow; Fell, the mining community and landscape of her native Aspatria, Cumbria; Frankfurther - London's East End and its multi-cultural working-class communities; Herman - Ystradgynlais in South Wales with its indigenous mining community; and Lowry - his hometown of Manchester and its industrial, multi-peopled cityscape. This exhibition links these five seemingly disparate artists by uncovering a network of relationships, both personal and professional, and their shared exploration of particular artistic concerns and motifs. This exhibition is one of the outcomes of the Eva Frankfurther Research and Curatorial Fellowship for the Study of Emigré Artists.