Appel à communication : « Painting Childhood : A study day at Compton Verney Art Gallery & Park » (Compton Verney, 29 mars 2019)
Children have long fascinated artists and have been captured in images ranging from formal portraits to humorous genre scenes and intensely personal family sketches. These diverse works will be the subject of two exhibitions at Compton Verney from 16 March – 16 June 2019. Painting Childhood: Hans Holbein to Lucian Freud will present a survey of some of the most iconic paintings of children produced over the past 500 years, with sections devoted to the royal portrait, play and learning, and the fantasy and reality of children’s lives. Childhood Now will explore contemporary representations of children in the work of the painters Chantal Joffe, Matthew Krishanu and Mark Fairnington.
To coincide with these exhibitions we invite proposals for an interdisciplinary study day on the subject of childhood from 1500 to today. The study day will enable us to interrogate the key themes and issues of the exhibitions in more detail, contributing to the field of childhood studies through fruitful cross-disciplinary discussions. Painting Childhood will include select examples of children’s costumes, toys and schoolbooks. As such we welcome contributions from speakers with a range of disciplinary backgrounds and research perspectives (History, Literature, Sociology, Anthropology and History of Art). To facilitate meaningful debate papers will be grouped thematically and may address, but are not limited to, the following topics: Intimacy and family ties; dynasty, duty and privilege; play, fantasy and children’s worlds; the material culture of childhood; the appropriation and commercialisation of childhood; memories and memorials; childhood today and the future of childhood.
Keynote speaker: Dr Martin Postle
How to submit:
Please send a 300-word abstract for a 20-minute paper to art@comptonverney.org.uk by Monday 29 October 2018. We welcome applications from emerging and established scholars. Please include a short professional biography. Travel bursaries will be available for speakers covering reasonable expenses incurred within the UK.
Organising committee: Amy Orrock (Compton Verney), Emily Knight (V&A) and Penelope Sexton (Compton Verney).
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