Supervised by Professor Dorothy Price, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art and Critical Race Art History, Courtauld Institute of Art and Dr Elena Crippa, Senior Curator, Modern and Contemporary British Art, Tate Britain
October 2021–
The Harlem Renaissance is recognised as having had a wider artistic and sociological impact on the United States and France but its transnational links with Britain have been understudied.
My research explores the cross-cultural exchanges between Harlem Renaissance and British artists, writers and activists in inter-war Britain. Could one experience ‘Harlem in London’ in the clubs and night spots as Rudolph Dunbar, the Guyanese composer, musician and journalist proclaimed in the Melody Maker in 1936? And if so, did the culture associated with the Harlem Renaissance extend to the art and politics of 1920s and 1930s Britain? What cross-cultural, transatlantic Black diasporic networks were in operation here? How did British artists engage with the movement beyond the racialised views that defined the relationship between colonial powers and subjects?
Using Tate collection works as a starting point and drawing on material in key archives, coeval newspapers and autobiographies, the project will trace the conversations, travels and connections between the figures from this time to re-examine the work through a new lens to reclaim the role of Black practitioners in the history of British modernism.
About Hattie Spires
Hattie Spires has worked in curatorial roles with Hayward Touring, assisting on British Art Show 7 (curated by Lisa LeFeuvre and Tom Morton, 2010), Curiosity: Art and the Pleasures of Knowing (Brian Dillon, 2013), Listening (Sam Belinfante, 2014) and at Tate Britain where she worked on Rachel Whiteread (2017), All Too Human (2018) and Van Gogh and Britain (2019). Recent publications include two short volumes: Tate Introductions Van Gogh (2019) and Summer: Highlights from the Tate Collection (2020). Hattie is interested in transhistorical and interdisciplinary ways of engaging with work.
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