Art chat America after the Fall: Painting in the 1930s

Join us for a drop-in conversation and share your thoughts about our current exhibition of 1930s American art.

In these monthly book club-style events, we open up the floor to discussion and responses to our latest exhibitions. It’s an informal chance to explore some of the wider themes and questions prompted by the artworks on display upstairs.

This month we focus on America after the Fall: Painting in the 1930s – described by the Observer as “nothing less than a condensed museum of art, not to be missed by anyone with the slightest interest in painting”. To what extent does the subject resonate with today’s crises of confidence in national identity? Should artists get involved in politics like Guglielmi? Or should they remain distant like Pollock, whose politics remained “at best of the parlour and not the activist variety”?

The conversation is led by Kim Jacobson, an artist educator at the RA who has also worked with museums, universities and schools across the UK. Kim’s own art practice revolves around drawing and painting with charcoal, ink, pastel and graphite. She also teaches studio-based practical art.

We welcome you to drop into our cosy lounge, the Belle Shenkman Room, to share your views and hear what others think. The bar will be open next door in the Casson Room for drinks and snacks, which you are welcome to bring through. To avoid disrupting others, we will close the door after 8pm, but latecomers are welcome – just come in and join us.

Friday 7 April 2017

8 — 9pm

The Belle Shenkman Room, The Keeper's House, Royal Academy of Arts, Piccadilly

Free, no booking required.