Illustrated talk by Dr. Alexandra Loske
Friday 26th July 2024, 6:30pm (doors open 6:00pm)
St Michael and All Angels Church, Victoria Road, Brighton, BN1 3FU
£10.00 (includes a glass of wine)

A contemporary of Angelica Kauffmann and Mary Moser, Mary Gartside was an English flower painter, teacher, self-taught botanist and an ambitious colour theorist. 

Although very little is known about her life, she published three books between 1805 and 1808, in which, under the guise of presenting technical instructions for ladies interested in the ‘polite art’ of painting in watercolour, she engaged with the scientific colour theory that was preoccupying intellectuals like Goethe and Moses Harris at the time. Until recently Gartside was overlooked or marginalised in the history of colour. 

Alexandra Loske has been researching Gartside for many years and has recently published the first stand-alone monograph on her, Mary Gartside: Abstract Visions Of Colour (Paul Holberton/Thomas Heneage, 2024) in which she discusses and reframes Gartside’s illustrations of her colour books as sophisticated early examples of abstract art.

In this lecture, Loske builds a picture of Gartside’s cultural circles and inspirations, highlighting her originality in the context of early nineteenth-century art writing and art. Gartside is now discussed in almost every new publication on colour history, and is included in Tate Britain’s new exhibition Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520–1920 (until 13 October 2024).

Tickets can be booked here or purchased on the door.

Loske's research is supported by the Centre of Life History and Life Writing Resarch: Squaring the Colour Circle: the lives and work of women in colour history

Hosted by The Friends of St Michael's, with proceeds going towards the restoration of he beautiful nineteenth-century church St Michael's and All Angels in central Brighton.