Event archive
Frances Spalding, The Real and the Romantic - English Art Between Two World Wars
- 22 November 2023 5.30pm - 7.15pm
- The Hostry, Norwich Cathedral, The Close, Norwich NR1 4DH
- Exclusive to EAAF Members - if you're not a member and would like to attend this event Join Now.
For the 2023 EAAF Annual Lecture we are delighted to have renowned art historian, critic and biographer Frances Spalding CBE talk about her most recent book, The Real and the Romantic: English Art between Two World Wars.
Mining a hugely versatile era in British art, Spalding’s delightfully nuanced volume investigates the nation’s aesthetics and cultural output in the 1920s and 1930s, shaped by the endless interplay between the emphasis on the 'real' or authentic and romantic sensibilities.
The early part of the period was marked by the intensity of commemoration that followed the first world war; the later by a darkening of mood brought about by the foreshadowing of the second. The Real and the Romantic takes a fresh look at this richly diverse period in English art.
Spalding established her reputation with Roger Fry: Art and Life. She went on to write lives of the artists Vanessa Bell, John Minton, Duncan Grant, Gwen Raverat, John and Myfanwy Piper and Prunella Clough. Her survey history, British Art since 1900, in the Thames & Hudson World of Art series, was followed in the mid-1990s by a commission to write a centenary history of Tate. Between 2000 and 2015, she taught at Newcastle University, becoming Professor of Art History. She acted as Editor of The Burlington Magazine, 2015-16, and is now Emeritus Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge. Spalding is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art and in 2005 was made a CBE for Services to Literature.
Tickets are £18 and include drinks on arrival.
| 5.30pm | Arrivals and drinks |
| 6.00pm | Lecture |
| 7.15pm | Close |
- The Real and the Romantic, English Art Between Two World Wars
- Frances Spalding
- © The Author
