Open email to: [email protected] Monday, 31 October 2022
Subject: Where is Ronald Moody in 1930 Room and Frank Bowling in 1960 Room? Where are the works Ronald Moody in the 1930 Room and Frank Bowling in the 1960 Room? As two of the earliest Black artists in your collection Moody and Bowling demand a space in Walk Through British Art, if Tate is to meet its declared aim to share art in all its complexity and diversity. Both have been in those rooms but now their absence leaves a big hole in telling the story of the Black presence in British art –Image of the Black in Tate Britain. I fully appreciate that curating demands choices have to made but I would argue that there are some works and/or themes that are core to Tate’s collection, in fact define the collection. Think of the British Museum without the Rosetta Stone or the Louvre without the Mona Lisa or Imperial War Museum without a piece by a war artist. So not to see Ronald Moody’s work in Walk Through British Art in 1930 Room and Frank Bowling’s work in the 1960 Room was deeply disappointing as both are core the story of Black British art in Tate’s collection Moody is the first Black artist’s work in your collection so, his work has to an integral part of the 1930 Room if its hang is to demonstrate Tate Britain’s complexity and diversity. His absence from the room is a hard to understand. I am reduced to discussing the Black presence via John Skeaping’s Akua-Ba having missed the opportunity to discuss the first Black artist in Tate’s collection as his work is in store. For exactly the same aim Bowling’s work should be in the 1960 Room as his white contemporaries such as Bridget Riley and David Hockey both of whom featured in Whitechapel Gallery’s seminal 1965 New Generation exhibition; Bowling was excluded, he reported he was advised by the director ‘England is not yet ready for an artist of colour’. I appreciate that Bowling is included in Sixty Years: The Unfinished Conversation which is fine but as I have argued he was an integral part of the 1960 Room so if this room is to show the ‘complexity and diversity’ you claim then he should be in both spaces. Equally Moody’s work should be put back in the1930 Room. Please let me know your plans to put the works of Moody and Bowling back into Walk Through British Art in order that Tate can show the ‘complexity and diversity’ of its collection. Regards Michael I. Ohajuru [email protected] Image of the Black in London Galleries Update 2nd Nov 2022 Received a positive, prompt response to my tweet annoucing my open emial
Followed by detailed, considered email which included the following......
I hope you will be pleased to hear that Frank Bowling's work will be central to our 1960s galleries. Unfortunately, for conservation reasons, Ronald Moody's work from the 1930s cannot currently be included in our inter-war displays. However, Moody's work will be included in the gallery dedicated to the post-war period with a significant wood carving from our collection. from email from Tate 31 October 2022 Along with an invitation to see the new hang once it is complete in Dec. I will be taking them up on that invite and reporting back in December.
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