British Landscapes

British Landscapes: A Sense of Place explores how artists responded to the landscape of England, Scotland, Wales during the 20th century. Drawn from the remarkable Modern British art collection of Pallant House Gallery, alongside exceptional works on long-term loan from private collections, it features much loved artists including Barbara Hepworth, Clare Leighton, Paul Nash, Ben Nicholson, Eric Ravilious, Graham Sutherland and Keith Vaughan.

British Landscapes covers a wide range of genres, showcasing a history of 20th century art in Britain: British Post-Impressionism by Spencer Gore and Walter Sickert; a focus on the 1920s printmaking revival of etching and wood-engraving with FL Griggs and Robin Tanner; 1930s travel posters and watercolours by David Jones and Eric Ravilious; an exploration of Surrealism through Paul Nash, John Tunnard and Julian Trevelyan; and wartime landscapes by John Piper, Sutherland and Keith Vaughan. The final section considers the development of abstraction in British art via the St Ives artists and their contemporaries, such as Ivon Hitchens.

It explores the concept of placemaking, and how artists have conveyed the spirit or sense of a particular place in their artworks. It not only includes pastoral idylls but also urban, suburban and industrial landscapes. A leitmotif running throughout is the relationship of people to the land: from images of rural labour and farming to the development of leisure tourism. It also considers how the British landscape has been central to the formation of regional and national identities, and how tangentially it can convey the anxieties of socio-political events, such as the First and Second World Wars.

This fully illustrated catalogue is published to accompany the exhibition of the same title at Pallant House Gallery.