Riverside Days And Nights

Professor Alan Powers talks about the local artistic community in the inter-war period

Professor Alan Powers will give an illustrated talk on the topic of 'Riverside Days and Nights- the literary and artistic community of inter-war Chiswick and Hammersmith' on Tuesday October 29th at 7.30pm at the Pier House.

The talk is organised by the Chiswick Pier Trust.
Professor Powers is a leading authority on twentieth century art, architecture and design, and the talk coincides with the publication of his new book -Eric Ravilious: Artist and Designer.

Eric Ravilious 'The Stork at Hammersmith'- Courtesy of Towner Eastbourne

Taking its title from one of Nigel Playfair and A.P. Herbert’s famous revues at the Lyric Theatre, the lecture will consider some of the artists and writers who lived on or close to the river in Hammersmith and Chiswick, at a time when St Peter's Square was known as 'free love corner'.

Although not a deliberately constituted artistic and intellectual community, they often interacted (dramatically, at times) with each other and formed a cultural grouping as distinctive as Bloomsbury or Hampstead between the wars, with an annual celebration of Boat Race Day as a unique feature. Among those appeOctober 18, 2013e Cronin Hastings, Gertrude Hermes, Eric and Celandine Kennington and the Footprints Workshop, Len Lye, Naomi Mitchinson, Nancy Nicholson, Mary Potter, Eric Ravilious, Laura Riding and Julian Trevelyan.

Alan Powers took a degree and PhD in History of Art at Cambridge, and has worked in architectural preservation and as a freelance author and lecturer, publishing books on architecture, art and design. He is a joint editor of the journal Twentieth Century Architecture for the Twentieth Century Society, and Chairman of Pollock's Toy Museum in central London. His research covers a wide range of topics, and he has a particular interest in exploring new interpretations of the emergence of modernism in Britain in the 20th century.

A Guest curator of the centenary exhibition, Eric Ravilious: Imagined Realities, at the Imperial War Museum (2003), his other books include Britain in the series Modern Architectures
in History (2007) and Curwen: Art and Print (2008).

Eric Ravilious: Artist and Designer (Lund Humphries, Hardback, £35) is the most comprehensive overview to date of Ravilious’ work in all media: watercolour, illustration, printmaking, graphic design, textiles and ceramics and firmly positions him as a major figure in the history of early 20th-century British art. You can read more about it here: www.ashgate.com

Doors open at 7pm and the talk will start at 7.30pm. Tickets are £3, or free to members of the Chiswick Pier Trust. Refreshments will be available.

For further information on the Pier and how to get there, contact the Chiswick Pier
Trust 020 8742 2713 or log on at www.chiswickpier.org.uk  

October 18, 2013