The gallery is open Tuesday - Friday 2 -5 PM for the duration of the exhibition.
The Borough Road Gallery at London South Bank University is delighted to present an exhibition of the work of Dorothy Mead and Edna Mann. Both former alumnae of London South Bank University – then known as the Borough Polytechnic – and two of the few female artists to have attended the classes of artist-educator, David Bomberg (1890-1957). In showcasing important yet little-known paintings and drawings dating from the 1940s to the 1970s drawn from The Sarah Rose Collection – itself representative of a key moment in the University’s history –, the exhibition seeks to highlight the individual nature of both women’s undercelebrated achievements.
Born in East London in 1926, Edna Mann was an artist, teacher and mother described by her siblings as a ‘brave’, ‘vivacious’ ‘lifeforce’. First educated at Romford County High School for Girls, Mann went on to study at the South-East Technical College and Dagenham School of Art where she encountered artist-teacher David Bomberg. It was rare for female students to attend Bomberg’s classes like Dorothy Mead, Mann was initially sceptical. But in 1944 she followed him to the City Literary Institute and subsequently to the Borough Polytechnic, now London South Bank University. Under Bomberg’s tutelage, Mann’s work included charcoal renderings of iconic buildings that she likely drew from sitting on the roof of the Borough Road building where she could see Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s Cathedral and Cityscape. After becoming a mother, Mann’s artistic career was side-lined. Mann did maintain a creative practise throughout her life, writing a radio play for the BBC called The Leavers. Mann’s achievements at London South Bank University and as part of the Borough Group are largely unacknowledged, this exhibition is an incredibly rare opportunity to see Mann’s work on display to the public.
Dorothy Mead was born in London in 1928. Despite first lodging a formal protest against David Bomberg’s approach when she encountered him at the South-East Technical College and Dagenham School of Art – ‘I was 16 years at the time and understood little, but daily realise what I owe to him’ – Mead was subsequently won over, following Bomberg to the City Literary Institute and, in 1945, to the Borough Polytechnic. Having become devoted to his challenging example in 1946 Mead became a founder member of the Borough Group, formed, in the artist’s own words, ‘to ‘further the aims of David Bomberg and to establish his students as professional painters’. Bomberg’s classes at the Borough Polytechnic broke the form of teacher demonstrations instead he encouraged his students to learn through doing. She exhibited alongside its other members including Dennis Creffield and Cliff Holden until the group disbanded in 1951.
Following in Bomberg’s footsteps in 1956 Mead enrolled as a mature student at the Slade School of Art where she continued to flourish, influencing younger artists
including Ray Atkins, Mario Dubsky, Anthony Green, Ben Levine and Patrick Procktor. Dubsky wrote that ‘Under the mentorship of Dorothy Mead, whose work…seemed challenging, radical and heroic, … I wholeheartedly subscribed to the Bombergian approach’, while Green recalled her encouraging and ‘life-enhancing’ presence. Mead was president of the Young Contemporaries (now known as New Contemporaries) from 1958-59, organising the tenth annual exhibition of Painting, Sculpture, Graphic Art, Drawing and stained-glass work by students in attendance at art schools across the country.
And yet despite winning the Steer Medal for Landscape Painting and the Slade School of Fine Art Prize for Figure Painting, Mead was forced to leave without a degree. She failed to sit the perspective exam and Professor Coldstream’s refused to accept her thesis in which she stated her belief in ‘the scientific method, academic attitude, and scholarship’ as ‘antipathetic to creation’ and, more specifically, ‘alien to me in my work as a painter’. Key to understanding Mead’s audacity and originality as an artist and her uninhibited yet discerning handling of paint, is a statement made in an undated letter to Andrew Forge: ‘It seems that I do not toe the line. I recognise no line. I accept only myself. The line is an unreal thing to me, and the gamble on myself has to be made, not just in energy and work, but in self-belief.’
Although included in the 1964 Arts Council exhibition, 6 Young Painters along with David Hockney, Peter Blake and Bridget Riley, and an active member of the London Group since 1960 and its first female president, Mead was never given the opportunity of a solo show. The relative neglect Mead suffered during her lifetime undoubtedly owes something to then prevalent attitudes towards women as creators and disseminators of radical ideas.
The line is an unreal thing: Dorothy Mead and Edna Mann is an exploration of two under-researched artists within the context of the institution that shaped their artistic practice.
With special thanks to research curator to Dr Nicola Baird.