Home and Garden: Domestic Spaces In Paintings From 1914

This major exhibition will explore the representation of urban domestic interiors and gardens in 20th century paintings, providing a vivid and intimate glimpse into private worlds not often on view. It will pick up where the Geffrye's acclaimed two-part exhibition of the same name, which covered the 18th and 19th centuries, left off, taking the story from 1914 to the present day.

Part 3: 1914 - 1960, from 20 February to 24 June 2007
Part 4: 1960 - present, from 16 October 2007 to 4 February 2008

Works by both famous artists and those who are less well known will be displayed in two groups of about 40 pieces each, mainly paintings and a small number of drawings. Part Three will include works by Vanessa Bell, Walter Sickert, Paul Nash, Eric Ravilious and Victor Pasmore. Part Four will bring the story up to the present day and will include paintings by Carel Weight, Olwyn Bowey, Howard Hodgkin, Tom Dixon, John Pearce, Stuart Pearson Wright and Julian Bell.

In all of these paintings the complex nature of the English urban middle classes begins to be revealed. As a field of study, this is still relatively new. Our first Home and Garden exhibitions and catalogue broke new ground in demonstrating the value of paintings and drawings as evidence for understanding the middle classes and their homes, and here we have built on the earlier methodology and adopted new approaches suitable for the more recent works. In selecting works we have taken great care to ensure that the subjects fall within the middle-class realm, which in itself is rather difficult to define, but here includes the broad swathe of people in the middle of society.

Our definition of urban includes suburbs and is mainly focused on London, but we have included major English cities and towns where a particular work makes an important point not covered by a London painting.

In each work in the Home and Garden exhibition and catalogue the sitter and/or place are identified, composition details and their hidden meanings are analysed, and key objects and their symbolism revealed, while finally the artist and oeuvre are placed in the context of their time. Reading pictures in this way provides fascinating insights into the culture, habits, tastes, values and social milieu which defined the middle classes during this period.

By www.geffrye-museum.org.uk