A Crisis of Brilliance 1908-1922

Brilliant exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery looking at the work of the students at the Slade School of Art in between 1908 and 1912 where they formed part of what their esteemed drawing teacher Henry Tonks described as the school’s last ‘crisis of brilliance’. The exhibition was based on David Boyd Haycock’s book of the same title.

The main artists were C.R.W. Nevinson, Stanley Spencer, Mark Gertler, Dora Carrington, David Bomberg and Paul Nash who, I admit, are some of my favourites. The exhibition had all the main pieces you’d want to see if you know anything about the lives of these artists and some I had not seen before. I loved the first wall of portraits and self portraits of them particularly the run of pictures of Carrington and Gertler.

It followed their lives not only through their college years but also in the First World War and beyond. I loved the room on how the war had influenced them either because they went or because  of their pacifism.

I just wish I’d got to the exhibition earlier so I could have gone again!

Reviews
Telegraph
Independent

 

 

 

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