During Trevor Bell’s long career, the fortunes of abstract painting rose and fell, but Bell always remained committed to abstraction.
Writer and independent art historian, Michael Bird, explores the changing ideas and ideals embodied by abstract painting in the second half of the 20th century, beginning with Bell’s arrival in 1955 in the abstract outpost of St Ives.
Date: Tuesday 22 May Time: 19:00 Ticket information: £6/£4.20/Friends free
The early decades of the 20th century were marked by a series of turbulent political upheavals, from revolutions in Russia and Mexico to unprecedented leftist radicalism across Europe and America. This talk examines the dynamic relations between art and revolution, exploring the ways in which artists working across the aesthetic spectrum, from realism through to the new abstraction, sought to participate actively in the fight for political change, engaging culture as a means of transforming society.
