Lily Le Brun (Roper's 2004) debut book ‘Looking to Sea – Britain through the eyes of its Artists’ was published this week. Looking to Sea is an alternative history of Britain in the twentieth century, told through the prism of ten iconic artworks of the sea, one for each decade between 1912 and 2015.
From Vanessa Bell’s Studland Beach, one of the first modernist paintings in Britain, to Paul Nash’s work bearing the scars of his experience in the trenches and Martin Parr’s photographs of seaside resorts in the 1980s that tackle ideas of class and deprivation, Looking to Sea embraces ideas from modernism and the sublime, the impact of the world wars and colonialism, to issues crucial to our world today like the environment and nationhood.
Lily Le Brun is a graduate of Edinburgh University and the Courtauld Institute of Art, she has written on art for publications such as Art Quarterly, the Financial Times, and the Economist. In 2018 Lily won a Royal Society of Literature Giles St Aubyn Award for the early chapters of Looking to Sea. She lives in Paris and this is her first book.
In this astonishingly perceptive portrait of the twentieth century, art critic Lily Le Brun brings a fresh eye to a vast idea, offering readers an imaginative new way of seeing our island nation.
“Looking to Sea is a remarkable and compelling book….I loved it.”
-Edmund De Waal, author of The Hare With Amber Eyes.
“This history of twentieth-century Britain, refracted through ten artistic responses to the sea, is beautifully written - authoritative and questioning; scholarly, but also vividly insightful about bodies, private lives, feelings, the often-overlooked quotidian.”
-Aida Edemariam, judge of the Royal Society of Literature Awards
You can purchase a copy of the book here - https://www.waterstones.com/book/looking-to-sea/lily-le-brun/9781529309218
Junior School Open Day
The next Alleyn's Junior School Open Event is from 1.30pm to 3pm on Wednesday 22 May 2024. There will be a Head's Talk at 1.40pm after which you will be offered a tour of the school with a pupil. There is no need to book a place at this Open Event - everyone is welcome.
Last updated on 20 05 24 at 09:12
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