Wrestling with art

Uncovering a wealth of new material, this lecture explores why so many artists have depicted scenes of combat sport across the globe and highlights the important historic connections between art and sport. The talk will be illustrated with many fascinating works taking us on an action-packed visual journey to ancient Greece, eighteenth-century York, early twentieth-century London and contemporary Senegal.

Dr Sarah Victoria Turner specialises in nineteenth- and twentieth-century art in Britain and the British Empire. She joined the History of Art Department in 2008 after completing her PhD at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London. She also holds an MA in Sculpture Studies from the University of Leeds and the Henry Moore Institute. She has continued to actively research and write about twentieth-century sculpture and recently contributed an essay entitled ‘Sex, Stone and Empire: Direct Carving and “British” Sculpture’ to the catalogue for the Modern British Sculpture exhibition at the Royal Academy. Sarah regularly collaborates with galleries and museums. In 2011, she was the second University of York-Tate Research Fellow where she researched Henri Gaudier-Brzeska’s Wrestlers with the assistance of poet and wrestler, S.J. Fowler. However, it was in York, where her interest in wrestling began when she was asked to write an essay on William Etty’s The Wrestlers for the recent exhibition William Etty: Art & Controversy at York Art Gallery.