Sculpture in the Home: Re-staging a Post-War Initiative', guest-curator Robert Burstow, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, October 2008 - January 2009

Dr Robert Burstow is Reader in History and Theory of Art at the University of Derby. He is a specialist in the history and theory of 20th and 21st century Western art. His principal research interests are in post-war modern and contemporary British art and art criticism, and he has a particular interest in public art. His research is informed by a contextualizing and interdisciplinary approach, engaging with the fields of architecture, urban planning, landscape gardening and interior design. He completed his PhD on modern public sculpture in post-war Britain at the University of Leeds in 2000 and was awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in 2003. His doctoral dissertation argued that the emergence of new forms of sculptural production and display in post-war Britain were connected to ideologies of national social reform and international Cold War, connecting these phenomena to developments in public health and recreation, national identity, urban reconstruction, intelligence warfare and cultural diplomacy. Publication of this research in conference papers, academic books and peer-reviewed journals has been cited in Austrian, British, French, German and US publications.

Robert Burstow has written about many important exhibitions and events in post-war Britain, including the Unknown Political Prisoner sculpture competition, the sculpture commissions for the Festival of Britain, and the Sculpture in the Home and Battersea Park open-air sculpture exhibitions. He has also written on the work of many individual artists and critics, including Reg Butler, Anthony Caro, Elisabeth Frink, Heinz Henghes, Bernard Meadows, Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson, Eduardo Paolozzi, Ronald Pope and Herbert Read. He has published essays and reviews in academic and professional journals, including Art History, The Oxford Art Journal, The Sculpture Journal, The Journal of the Twentieth Century Society, Apollo, Artscribe and Frieze, and contributed chapters to books, such as Herbert Read: A British Vision of World Art (1993), Henry Moore: Critical Essays (2003), Sculpture in 20th-Century Britain (2003), Sculpture and the Garden (2006), The History of British Art, 1870 to Today (2008) and Exhilarating Energies from the East: the impact of Artist émigrés from Eastern Europe on British culture, c.1900-1950s (forthcoming 2011). He has curated several exhibitions – Symbols for ’51: the Royal Festival Hall, Skylon and Sculptures for the Festival of Britain at the Royal Festival Hall in London (1995), Ronald Pope: Modern Sculpture in the Public Eye at the University of Derby (2008) and Sculpture in the Home: re-staging a post-war initiative at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds (2008-9). He has acted as a peer reviewer for academic journals and a consultant for television documentaries. He is currently leading research on the public sculpture of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire for the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association’s National Recording Project and working on a forthcoming book on modern sculpture in post-war Britain.

Contact: R.Burstow@derby.ac.uk