Art History
Cherith's advisory work is grounded in more than a decade of art historical research, writing and curating. Her scholarship focuses on post-war British art history, with particular interest in the contribution of émigré and queer artists to the development of the British art world. Below is a selection of her papers, lectures and projects.
Kyungseo Lee - Where colour and form collide in a dance of representation and abstraction
In a world inundated with artificial images - whether manipulated, staged or a Frankenstein’s monster of both - the concept of a truthful image has become elusive. A growing trend in contemporary painting reflects this shift, with artists turning to cinematic stills and found imagery to capture those fleeting, shivering moments that exist in the transition between one second and the next, perhaps in an attempt to capture a truer and more honest type of representation.
Read Cherith's review of Kyungseo Lee's work on GowithYamo - here
Defining the Female Gaze: The Woman Gallerist, The Woman Artist, and the Image of Woman in a New World
Helena Cuss, curator of 'Cosmopolis: The Impact of Refugee Art Dealers in London', invited Cherith to deliver a paper as part of the Ben Uri's programme of weekly talks associated with this exhibition.
You can read the paper here
The Hanover Gallery & Queer Representation
Cherith delivered my paper on The Hanover Gallery & Queer Representation for the Association of Art Historians Conference in 2021, as part of a seminal on Female* Art Dealers in Mid-20th Century Britain, co-organised by Abi Shapiro of the Hepworth Wakefield and Sarah Turner of the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies on British Art.
You can read the paper here.
Lunchtime Lecture: The Émigrés who Transformed The British Art World
Jewish Rennaissance in partnership with the Lyons Learning Centre.
Watch the lunchtime lecture here
Radical Female Role Models: A Blueprint For Success As An “Outsider”
Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London hosted a conference organised by The International Art Market Studies Association on the topic of Refugee Art Dealers in Britain. For the occasion, art historian, curator, and author Cherith Summers presented a paper which outlined her theory that Hanover Gallery’s proprietor, Erica Brausen, may have found in Johanna (Mutter) Ey, a gallerist from Brausen’s native city of Dusseldorf, a blueprint for success as an “outsider”.
Read the abridged paper here
Brave New Visions: The émigrés who transformed the British art world
Together with Sue Grayson Ford, MBE, Cherith co-curated Brave New Visions: the émigrés who transformed the British art world. The exhibition was part of the Insiders / Outsiders art festival, and was kindly hosted by Sotheby's.
The exhibition paid tribute to the émigrés who revolutionised Britain’s art and publishing worlds. Brave New Visions told the story of the pioneering émigré art dealers who transformed the London gallery scene, introducing artists such as Naum Gabo, Oskar Kokoschka, Kurt Schwitters and Francis Bacon to post-war Britain.The vision of influential dealers including Lea Bondi Jaray (St. George's Gallery), Erica Brausen (Hanover Gallery), Andras Kalman (Crane Kalman Gallery), Frank Lloyd and Harry Fischer (Marlborough Gallery), Annely Juda (Molton, Hamilton and Annely Juda Fine Art), and Charles and Peter Gimpel (Gimpel Fils) was be shown through key paintings and sculptures by the artists they championed. These included William Scott, Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, Gillian Ayres, Frank Auerbach and Graham Sutherland. Fellow émigrés at Phaidon and Thames & Hudson led a parallel revolution in the staid world of British publishing, providing a platform for European scholarship in affordable art books which raised standards of design and reproduction.
The exhibition catalogue can be read here: https://insidersoutsidersfestival.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/BRAVE-NEW-VISIONS-compressed-4-1.pdf