Martina Droth – författare

A fresh take on one of contemporary art’s most renowned figures Tracey Emin (b. 1963) is widely known for dynamic and autobiographical works that reflect grief, hope, loss, and love. For more than three decades, her art has challenged stereotypes about female experience and sexuality. Rising up with a cohort dubbed the Young British Artists (YBAs), Emin made her mark in London with sculptural installations that became icons of the 1990s. She went on to explore an exceptional range of media, becoming famous for her neon and textile works. Yet Emin has long thought of painting as central to her artistic practice and since the early 2000s has intensified her focus on the medium in large-scale figurative works rooted in emotion and bodily experience. Published to accompany Emin’s first major exhibition in North America, this generously illustrated volume features an exclusive interview with the artist, places her work in its art-historical context, and opens new avenues for approaching her painting and closely related drawing practice. Published by the Yale Center for British Art/Distributed by Yale University Press Exhibition Schedule: Yale Center for British Art(March 29–August 10, 2025)

With a career spanning more than sixty years, Anthony Caro (b. 1924) is one of Britain's most acclaimed and best-known sculptors. Caro: Close Up accompanies the first survey exhibition of his work in an American museum since his retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in 1975. Although celebrated for his large, brightly painted abstract sculptures, Caro has also produced drawings and small-scale works of a more private nature throughout his career. The full range of his oeuvre includes works on paper, sculptures constructed in paper and cardboard, and abstract works of steel, bronze, and clay.Featuring new photography of more than sixty works drawn almost entirely from Caro's studio and family collections, this publication examines the critical responses that Caro's work has elicited from the 1950s to the present and considers his role in current artistic practice. The authors explore the ways the sculptor has used the physical properties of his materials, while Caro himself discusses his exhibition and installation practices.Published for the Yale Center for British ArtExhibition Schedule:Yale Center for British Art(10/18/12–12/30/12)

Sculpture Victorious highlights the diversity, originality, and ubiquity of sculptural production during the reign of Queen Victoria. This lavishly illustrated book examines how colorful marbles, bronzes, finely wrought silver, and exquisitely detailed electrotypes, as well as gems, cameos, and porcelain, related to and contributed to the contemporary world. In an age of unprecedented territorial expansion, sculpture reflected the power of the British empire; at the same time, increased access to materials and resources facilitated artistic production and innovation. The partnership between art and industry was equally generative and creative, enabling daring explorations of sculpture’s possibilities, both political and aesthetic. Bringing to bear a range of materials including statuary, reliefs, models, drawings, and objets d’art, as well as prints, photographs, and paintings, this stunning tome assembles, for the first time, the vibrancy, inventiveness, and modernity of Victorian sculpture. Published in association with the Yale Center for British ArtExhibition Schedule:Yale Center for British Art(09/11/14–11/30/14)Tate Britain(02/24/15–05/24/15)

Britain in the World presents highlights from the collection of the Yale Center for British Art. Included alongside iconic works—such as George Stubbs’s Zebra, Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Miss Prue, and J. M. W. Turner’s Dort—are diverse and fascinating objects that range from the Tudor period to the present day.Featuring work by John Constable, William Henry Fox Talbot, Barbara Hepworth, Chris Ofili, and Yinka Shonibare, this beautifully illustrated book offers a valuable glimpse into the Center’s vast and varied holdings. It also reveals British art as a global phenomenon, shaped and characterized by cultural exchange, exploration, scientific discovery, and, crucially, by the long history of colonialism and empire. This book illustrates the myriad ways in which visible and invisible global connections are present in the visual and material culture of Britain.Published in association with the Yale Center for British Art

A close look at the work, relationship, and shared influences of two masterful 20th-century artists“The camera,” said Orson Welles, “is a medium via which messages reach us from another world.” It was the camera and the circumstances of the Second World War that first brought together Henry Moore (1898–1986) and Bill Brandt (1904–1983). During the Blitz, both artists produced images depicting civilians sheltering in the London Underground. These “shelter pictures” were circulated to millions via popular magazines and today rank as iconic works of their time. This book begins with these wartime works and examines the artists’ intersecting paths in the postwar period. Key themes include war, industry, and the coal mine; landscape and Britain’s great megalithic sites; found objects; and the human body. Special photographic reproduction captures the materiality of the print as a three-dimensional object rather than a flat, disembodied image on the page.Published by the Yale Center for British Art/Distributed by Yale University PressExhibition Schedule:The Hepworth Wakefield(February 7–November 1, 2020)Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich(November 21, 2020–February 28, 2021)Yale Center for British Art(November 17, 2022–February 26, 2023)

An in-depth look at the innovative career of an artist renowned for his multimedia explorations of colonial and postcolonial power For the past thirty years, Guyanese British artist Hew Locke (b. 1959) has used strategies of appropriation to reveal and upend the visual codes of imperialism. Incorporating sculpture, photography, drawing, and found objects, Locke’s oeuvre has been described as a “postcolonial baroque” that deconstructs and reimagines deeply entrenched iconographies of British sovereignty. This richly illustrated catalogue showcases the full spectrum of Locke’s practice, bringing together distinct bodies of work that scrutinize the visual language of empire and colonialism’s present-day legacies of global market capitalism, migration, and diaspora. Essays from leading curators, critics, and scholars of contemporary art situate Locke’s work within the context of colonial and postcolonial history and theory, reveal how his use of nontraditional materials—including cardboard, fabric, beads, sequins, and readymade toys—enables the artist to reflect on his Guyanese-British heritage, and consider how the artist’s dense, highly textured, and multilayered works fuse vernacular and formal traditions. Published by the Yale Center for British Art/Distributed by Yale University Press Exhibition Schedule: Yale Center for British Art(October 2, 2025–January 11, 2026) Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH(February 13–May 24, 2026) Museum of Fine Arts, Houston(June 21–September 13, 2026)

Masterpieces from the largest collection of British art outside the United KingdomPlacing three hundred extraordinary artworks within their historical contexts, this remarkable book illustrates the development of British art from the fifteenth century to today. Drawn from the esteemed collection of the Yale Center for British Art, the objects showcased in this volume include paintings, sculptures, prints, watercolors, sketchbooks, miniatures, rare books, photographs, maps, and more. Among the key artists featured are William Blake, John Constable, Barbara Hepworth, Gwen John, Yinka Shonibare, and J. M. W. Turner. Richly illustrated and exquisitely produced, this publication will delight as well as inform anyone interested in British culture. Published by the Yale Center for British Art/Distributed by Yale University Press

"My desire has been to indicate the most practical modes in which we can employ the noblest and the most refined of the plastic arts in the adornment of our streets and public buildings on the one hand, and of our private houses on the other." —Edmund Gosse.Author, translator, librarian, and scholar Edmund Gosse (1849–1928) was one of the most important art critics writing about sculpture in late-nineteenth century Britain. In 1895, he published the The Place of Sculpture in Daily Life, a quirky, four-part series of essays that ran in the Magazine of Art under the headings "Certain Fallacies," "Sculpture in the House," "Monuments," and "Decoration." Often cited but never before reprinted, Gosse's essays sought to demystify sculpture and to promote its patronage and appreciation. Martina Droth's introduction and commentary contextualize the essays within their era, providing insight into the world of late-Victorian sculpture. David J. Getsy's afterword connects the essays' themes to the present, offering a resonant perspective on the sculpture of today.