We are pleased to announce that Sunderland Culture will present the first of its major Arts Council Collection National Partners Programme exhibitions.
Opening on 1 February 2020, Received Wisdom challenges the notion that creativity and innovation are the preserve of youth by bringing together a body of work created by older artists, drawn from the Arts Council Collection’s extensive range of modern and contemporary British art.
Wide-ranging and dynamic, the exhibition confronts our assumptions about ageing by celebrating both artists who have enjoyed long careers as well as those who discovered their creativity later in life.
Rebecca Ball, Creative Director of Sunderland Culture, explains:
“We wanted to use the opportunity of our first Arts Council Collection show to challenge some assumptions about what it is to be an artist and dispel some stereotypes about age and ageing. From those who have been working as artists all their lives but whose art has only become celebrated in their later years, to those who have only began their arts careers in their 60s or 70s. The breadth and range of the artworks created are incredibly inspiring.”
Bringing together the works of 36 artists, Received Wisdom includes a wide range of art forms including sculpture, painting, photography and mixed media.
Taking its title from a featured artwork of the same name, by one of the UK’s foremost conceptual artists Amikam Toren, the exhibition poses the question – Who is deemed ‘creative’?
Received Wisdom features the work of artists who began their creative practice later in life and those that became most recognised in their later artistic career including Phyllida Barlow, John Sheehy and Elisabeth Vellacott, who had her first solo exhibition at the age of 63 before working long into her 90s.