Role Models: Portraits of Poets and Writers

7 May-23 Jul 2023

Overview

Explore drawings, collages and prints of writers and poets and discover the relationships that inspired them.

Some of the artists were friends with the writers they painted, like Edouard Manet and Charles Baudelaire and Michael Ayrton and Dylan Thomas. For others, it is their heroes or icons that are the focus of their work. Soheila Sokhanvari’s Kobra (Kobra Saeedi) depicts Kobra Saeedi, an actor and poet who fought for artistic freedom in Iran. Other artworks were influenced by stories or poetry, like David Hockney’s etchings inspired by Edward Lear’s poems.

The exhibition celebrates the unique exchange between artists and writers, between two very different mediums – the word and the image.