Sussex Modernism
Spanning from the late nineteenth century to the present, Sussex Modernism interweaves painting, sculpture, film, textiles, literature and music, bringing together artists not usually included within the story of modernism.
A monumental head carved in stone by Jacob Epstein (1910) shares a space with a seven-metre-long painting by Ivon Hitchens (1960) and a large wall hanging made with cellophane by Ethel Mairet’s Workshop (1940s). A magical woodland scene by surrealist Carlyle Brown (1948) appears alongside an Edward Burne-Jones tapestry (1886), a film by Neo-Naturist Jennifer Binnie with a soundtrack by The Cure (c. 1980) and a life-sized goddess by Alexi Marshall (2024).
Through all of these works and their varying relationships with the artistic movement of modernism is an original story about the ways in which art, culture, and places outside of metropolitan centres have been seen.
Spanning from the late nineteenth century to the present, the exhibition features surprising juxtapositions and jostling perspectives. From the dissident thinking of Virginia Woolf, Marion Milner, Grace Pailthorpe and Gluck, which took place in rural and coastal retreats, to the urban streets, seedy bars and rubbish dumps that frequent the countercultural art of Jeff Keen, Arnold Daghani, John Upton and Edward Burra, Sussex is shown to be a place always, and ever, in flux.
Places are reimagined through the eyes of different artists, both historic and contemporary. Pett Level inspired Epstein to conceive of a robot drilling into the rock (c. 1913). But it also provided a backdrop for ‘popular modernist’ David Bowie in the music video for Ashes to Ashes (1980), in which he wears a Pierrot clown costume, and featured more recently in a playful, postmodern painting (2020) by Sophie Barber (who also depicted rapper Kendrick Lamar at Camber Sands, a work also in this show).
The exhibition is curated by Dr Hope Wolf (University of Sussex) and based on Wolf’s book Sussex Modernism (Yale University Press, 2025).
Rifted Shores: Drawing in Response to Sussex Poetry
Saturday 31 May, 10.00am to 4.00pm
£60, concessions available
Linocut Tarot with Alexi Marshall
Saturday 5 July, 11.00am to 4.30pm
£80, concessions available
The South Downs Songbook: Orchestra of Sound and Light with Rachel Farago, voice
Sunday 13 July, 2.00pm to 3.00pm
£15, concessions available
Panel Discussion: What does it mean to be together?
Saturday 6 September, 2.30pm to 3.30pm
£14, concessions available
BSL Tour of Sussex Modernism
Saturday 13 September, 2.30pm to 3.30pm
Free (exhibition ticket required)
Sophie Barber, Franz at Pett Level, 2020. Oil on canvas, 3 × 4.5 × 4.2 cm. Alison Jacques