21-05-2025
Sussex Modernism review — plotting the future of art from the South Downs
If you really wanted to skewer an artist in 1914, calling them 'provincial' was pretty effective. The newness-obsessed Vorticists used it as the ultimate insult, declaring London the centre — or vortex — of Britain's artistic universe.
This new exhibition at Towner in Eastbourne, which places the first edition of the Vorticist publication BLAST at the start, and proceeds to thumb its nose at it, counters that view to look at artists, mostly between 1910 and 1980, working in or with a relation to Sussex (obvious contenders such as Lee Miller, Edward Burra and Gluck are joined by much lesser-known names, such as Mary Stormont or Damian Le Bas, who worked in a style he called 'gypsy dada') who could also broadly be described as
