Sussex Modernism by Hope Wolf - book
Yale University Press
A book to accompany the exhibition 'Sussex Modernism' at Towner 23 May to 28 Sept 2025 - (Please note orders placed before 8 April will be dispatched after this date)
About the exhibition - 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. More information about this exhibition can be found on our website.
- ISbn : 9780300244618
- 320 Pages, 215 x 269 mm, 202 colour / Hardcover
- Published: 8 April 2025 / Yale University Press
About the book -A look at how artists and writers harnessed the landscapes, cultures, and histories of their locations to reimagine how art should be made and life lived
Hope Wolf explores a breadth of work by over 70 artists associated with different modernist movements who either visited or resided in Sussex. Well-known figures, including Virginia Woolf, Jacob Epstein, David Jones, Gluck, Edward Burra, and Lee Miller, are joined by countercultural artists of the 1960s–1980s, women artists whose power was regional rather than national, as well as the voices of modernism’s opponents. Offering a new history of modernism, this book intertwines literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, film, photography, textiles, music, and domestic decoration across a period of over 100 years. Revealing how artists drew on their environments to promote psychic and social change, Sussex Modernism is a book of jostling perspectives on art, place and politics.
Dr Hope Wolf is a reader in Literature and Visual Culture and co-director of the Centre for Modernist Studies at the University of Sussex.
Critical reviews- 'When you thought that there was nothing more to be said about Eric Ravilious, Vanessa Bell, Edward Burra and Lee Miller, along comes this generously illustrated book presenting an entirely fresh perspective on 100 years of art history. Sussex Modernism weaves a web of connections between familiar names and largely forgotten artists, and tells a political and radical story of art making which feels fresh and important again.' - Nathaniel Hepburn, Director of Charleston, East Sussex, UK
'Ezra Pound called London "a vortex drawing strength from the peripheries." Hope Wolf's splendidly wide-ranging study of Sussex Modernism goes one step further, showing persuasively that regions outside the capital, often derived as merely 'provincial', could themselves become lively modernist 'vortices'.' - Peter Nicholls, Henry James Professor of English and American Letters, Emeritus New York University, Author of Modernisms: A Literary Guide
'A deep excavation into the cultural landscape, Wolf's exciting psychogeographical gazetteer asks: What art can place produce? Arresting answers come from the sceptics, mystics, rebels and disrupters who have sculpted, painted, photographed and filmed multiple visions of Sussex in flux'. -Annebella Pollen, Professor of Visual and Material Culture, University of Brighton