A collaborative research project between the Arts Council Collection and the University of Birmingham has been investigating how the UK's national touring collection of British art has developed since its founding in 1946. This research explores the Collection's position in, and contribution to, British art history and aims to ensure the stories within the Collection are accessible and relevant to a wide range of audiences.
This article offers a taster of our research so far, focusing on a key moment in the early history of the Collection, a 1958 four-part exhibition 'The Arts Council Collection of Paintings and Drawings'.
In its early days, the Collection aimed to tell a comprehensive story of British art since 1900, and this four-part exhibition was its first major attempt to do this. Our research has shown however, that far from offering a complete representation of contemporary art in Britain, these shows instead revealed the diversity of art practice and the impossibility of pinning down a clear sense of 'Britishness' in art.
In the foreword to one of the catalogues for 'The Arts Council Collection of Paintings and Drawings' (1958), curator Andrew Forge quoted the poet Geoffrey Grigson: 'English art, historically and thoroughly, is a romantic art, an art of individuals.' This statement captures the challenge of grouping artists into a national school.
The founding aim of the Collection was to promote and encourage the appreciation of contemporary British art through touring exhibitions, and the Acquisition Committees, who were in charge of choosing works for the Collection were in the early days interested in constructing a coherent collection of British art. At the same time, it was not clear what a coherent collection should include, and the choice of works would, to a large extent, be shaped by the individuals on the Acquisition Committee.
Carel Victor Morlais Weight (1908–1997) 
This somewhat vague acquisition strategy raised concerns for the Director of Art for the Arts Council in the 1950s, Philip James, who oversaw the Collection. In the Arts Council's Annual Report of 1957–1958, he explained that the 1958 exhibitions were intended to bring shape to the Collection, dividing it into four parts that would demonstrate key trends in British art since 1900. Each of the four exhibition parts featured 50 works, and were intended to represent four different themes or trends.
Part One: Towards Impressionism
'Part One: Towards Impressionism' began with Walter Sickert, underlining his importance as 'the leading English impressionist'. Contextualising Sickert in relation to France, the curator Forge also emphasised the 'supremely [...] English quality' of his work, which lay in the intense and dramatic short stories each contained.
Woman Seated on a Bed, Dieppe
1907
Walter Richard Sickert (1860–1942) 
The protagonist of Woman Seated on a Bed, Dieppe (1907) is perched upright on the edge, her eyes cast sideways towards the approaching viewer, and illuminated by dabbled brushstrokes – a hallmark of the French Impressionists.
In this show, the 'younger painters' of the Camden Town Group (1911–1913), for example, members of the Euston Road School (1937–1939), were presented alongside the older generation.
The mundane still life of The Office Desk by Rodrigo Moynihan, the dabbled brushstrokes and voyeuristic narrative suggested in Siesta by Ruskin Spear, and the accurate but selective plotting of forms in the landscape painting The Pond at Hawkshall by Elsie Few.
Part Two: After Impressionism
'Part Two: After Impressionism' featured artists who believed in the purpose of art to convey theories and ideas, rather than portray naturalistic depictions.
For example, Flowers and Grapes by Ethel Walker evidences the new emphasis on painting as poetic expression, whereby details in the foreground and background are reduced to abstract and decorative patterns, allowing for greater compositional clarity.
'Part Two' also continued to explore trends from the Continent that had influenced contemporary British artists – including Cubism, Expressionism and Surrealism. The catalogue mentioned the writings of artist and critic Roger Fry, who introduced several English painters to the theories of the so-called 'new French painting' via the Bloomsbury Group.
Such art was represented in the show by Provençal Landscape by Matthew Smith, a lyrical depiction of a valley using thick rhythmic brushstrokes to convey an experience of place.
Matthew Arnold Bracy Smith (1879–1959) 
Surrealism was represented in the work of Ceri Richards.
Ceri Giraldus Richards (1903–1971) 
Blue Interior with Dice is a chaotic amalgamation of objects and patterns that offers no surface reading. Instead, its 'magical' character – twisting paper, a ghostly figure, and nonsensical patterns – is an artistic exploration of imagination.
Part Three: Romantic and Abstract
'Part Three: Romantic and Abstract' attempted to highlight national character by drawing links between landscape and people, in a manner that was influenced by, amongst other things, the imagery used for the 1951 Festival of Britain. Graham Sutherland, who was well-represented at the Festival of Britain, featured in 'Part Three' with his Standing Form Against a Hedge which depicts a composite figure – one that is human, machine and nature – set against a flat leafy screen.
Standing Form Against a Hedge
1950
Graham Vivian Sutherland (1903–1980) 
His interest in landscape and the body was presented as an example of the 'Romantic English temperament', which was set in contrast to the French attachment to style. The whimsical and somewhat literary depiction of the English countryside by Elinor Bellingham-Smith in Winter Afternoon continues this theme.
Romantic expression of landscape was also linked to the work of artists from the St Ives School, an important centre for post-war modernism.
May 1956 (hendrifter) by Ben Nicholson is a flat relief made from an arrangement of rounded shapes. Earthy tones – muted ochre, nudes, and pale greys – are scratched away, evocative of the ancient textures and visuals of the surrounding geology.
Part Four: Since the War
'Part Four: Since the War' contained both younger painters and older painters who had undergone significant changes of style over the previous decade. In this section, Forge highlighted figuration as a major trend in new British art. Francis Bacon was a key example: his Head VI portrays a screaming man enclosed in a transparent box.
Bacon merged observation, memory, and Old Master imagery to inject his figurative style with searing darkness.
Diana Cumming also used figuration to create a nightmarish dreamscape for The Flood, wherein ghostly faces emerge from whisked egg-white-topped waves.
Bacon's influence was also traced in the realist works of the Kitchen Sink painters, for example, Jack Smith's After the Meal which depicts an everyday domestic interior, in a manner that imbues the work with social and political resonance.
Overall, the wide variety of artistic styles, influences and subject matter seen across the four parts of the exhibition shows the difficulty or perhaps impossibility in attempting to formulate a comprehensive and cohesive view of British art at this moment. Forge's commentary in the exhibition catalogues also shows the struggle of pinning down the relationship between British art and art from other countries.
Reflecting on this example, our research into the Collection in the 1950s has revealed one of the questions and challenges at the heart of the ACC's mission: what constitutes 'Britishness' in British art, and who gets to decide this? Our continuing research is now exploring how this has shifted, diversified and expanded over the Collection's lifetime.
Building on this project, the Arts Council Collection has begun to conduct a series of sector-wide and sector-led workshops to discuss how to best communicate its collecting history to a wider public, both across the UK arts sector and beyond. A key criteria is to ensure the research is accessible, interesting and meaningful to as wide an audience as possible.
Ultimately, we hope to foster greater public awareness, understanding and appreciation of the Arts Council Collection while reflecting on its nuanced role in the evolution of modern and contemporary British art.
Ella Nixon, Sophie Hatchwell, Alona Pardo and Greg Salter
