Walter Sickert: Camden Town Nudes

Returning from France, where he was one of the few English artists taken seriously, to backwards England in 1905, Sickert modestly declared to his fellow artists that he had been 'sent from heaven to finish all their educations'. In his works of 1905-13 shown here, Sickert redefined the genre of the nude and developed the achievements of Manet and Degas with a vernacular twist. Sickert found his inspiration in run-down Camden Town where he lived. Prefiguring Warhol by half a century, Sickert uses newspaper imagery of the 1907 murder of Emily Dimmock in his paintings. His ambiguous and explicit paintings of working class prostitutes created a storm of controversy whilst Venuses, odalisques and nymphs still dominated the Royal Academy. This exhibition is the first time these ground-breaking works have been shown together. 

AM