A Journey Through British Art from World War II to the Late Sixties at Fundació Joan Miró

BARCELONA.- The Fundació Joan Miró presents Let Us Face the Future, a journey through British art from the end of the Second World War to the late sixties. The exhibition has been organized by the Fundació Joan Miró and the British Council and sponsored by Fundación BBVA.

Let Us Face the Future, curated by Andrew Dempsey and Richard Riley, shows, for the first time in Spain, eighty-eight works by British artists from 1945-1968, on loan from the collections of British Council, the Arts Council, Tate and Pallant House Museum in Chichester, as well as other public and private collections.

A visitor contemplates British artist Kenneth Martin's(1905-1984) 'Black Sixes' (1965) on display during the exhibition 'Let us face the future', one of the largest showcase of postwar (1945-1968) British art ever presented in Spain, at the Miro Foundation in Barcelona, Spain, 25 November 2010. The Exhibition, which includes works by Henry Moore, Francis Bacon, David Hockney, Richard Hamilton, Lucien Freud, Anthony Caro and others, runs until 20 February 2011. EPA/ANDREU DALMAU.

The exhibition begins with works by Henry Moore and Francis Bacon which reflect the state of Britain and Europe immediately after the war: the horror of the concentration camps and the ever-present threat of the atomic bomb.

The title, Let Us Face the Future, comes from the Labour Party’s slogan for their 1945 electoral campaign, which culminated in the unexpected defeat of the Conservatives led by Winston Churchill. The incoming Labour government established the welfare state in the UK, bringing about changes in British society which eventually led to the explosion of creativity and freedom of 1960s London; David Hockney’s daring exploration of his sexuality, the sculptural revolution led by Anthony Caro, and the optical paintings of Bridget Riley. Other influential artists included in the exhibition are Eduardo Paolozzi, a Scot of Italian origin who with Bunk, a series of collages started in 1952, anticipated what would come to be Pop Art, and Richard Hamilton, creator of the 1956 collage Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing, which is considered to be the first work of the British Pop movement.

The range of art in Britain in this period is displayed in other sections devoted to the artists of St. Ives (a fishing village in Cornwall where an influential artists’ colony became established) including Peter Lanyon and Roger Hilton; the British Constructivists led by Victor Pasmore; and the revival of figurative painting by Lucian Freud, Leon Kossoff and Frank Auerbach, among others. The exhibition also includes photographers working in Britain from Bill Brandt to Tony Ray-Jones.

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