Art School Education: From Hockney to Hirst

Overview

This module seeks to examine the diversity and richness of art education in the UK, with a particular interest in developments since 1960.

The first Coldstream Report initiated sweeping changes in art education which, if anything, have only gathered impetus over the last fifty years.

From Hockney to Hirst and beyond, the art student experience has altered dramatically. So, how might their education and training impact upon the work and career of an artist?

Through the study of individual art schools and artists, these sessions will explore some of the most significant moments in the development of recent British art education.

The myriad critical, theoretical and administrative changes will be approached through individual case studies which will act to shed light on the larger pedagogical questions of the period.

Aims

By the end of the module, students should have acquired:

• a broad understanding of the field of British art education c.1960 until the present day, and a detailed knowledge of specific key moments
• the ability to analyse specific pedagogical approaches in the context of 20 th century British art education
• skills in constructing arguments around the relationship between modern and contemporary pedagogical practices and artworks

Reading

Essential

• Jon Thompson, 'Art Education: from Coldstream to QAA' in Critical Quarterly, vol. 47, nos. 1-2, 2005, pp. 215-25.
• *Paul Wood, 'Between God and the Saucepan: Some aspects of art education in England between the nineteenth century and the end of the twentieth' in Chris Stephens (ed.), The History of British Art - vol.3, Art and the Modern World: From the Victorians to Now, London: Tate Publishing, 2008, pp. 162-197.

Enrichment

• Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection, London: Royal Academy Art, 1997.
• *Stephen Foster and Nick de Ville (eds.), The Artist & The Academy - Issues in Fine Art Education and the Wider Cultural Context, University of Southampton, 1994.
  
• Charles Harrison, Essays on Art and Language, 2nd ed., London: the MIT Press, 2003.
• *Paul O’Neill and Mick Wilson (eds.), Curating and the Educational Turn, Open Editions / de Appel, 2010.
• *Stuart MacDonald, A Century of Art and Design Education: From Arts and Crafts to Conceptual Art, Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 2005, particularly Chapter 11: 'Arts and Crafts to Conceptual Art', pp.189-222.
• David Robbins (ed.), The Independent Group: Postwar Britain and the Aesthetics of Plenty, Cambridge, Massachusetts / London: the MIT Press, 1990.
• Alex Seago, Burning the Box of Beautiful Things: The Development of a Postmodern Sensibility, Oxford University Press, 1995.
• **David Thistlewood, A Continuing Process, London: ICA, 1981.
• *Stephen Henry Madoff (ed.), Art School (Propositions for the 21st Century), MIT, 2009.
• Julian Stallabrass, High Art Lite: The Rise and Fall of Young British Art, Verso, 2006 (Revised and expanded edition).
• *Lisa Tickner, Hornsey 1968: Art School Revolution, London: Frances Lincoln Ltd, 2008.

^{*Items currently on order with J.B. Morrell Library
**Photocopy available from Susanna on short-term loan}