The Secret to a Good Life
- Submitting institution
-
University for the Creative Arts
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- Voorsanger, J. 2018. SGL
- Type
- M - Exhibition
- Venue(s)
- Ronald and Rita McAulay Gallery, Royal Academy of Arts, London
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of first exhibition
- -
- Year of first exhibition
- 2018
- URL
-
https://research.uca.ac.uk/4622/
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
1
- Research group(s)
-
2 - Fine Art and Photography Research Centre
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- ‘The Secret to a Good Life’ was a collaborative exhibition by Jessica Voorsanger, Bob and Roberta Smith RA and their daughter Etta Voorsanger-Brill. The three artists worked collectively and collaboratively on the exhibition as a whole, as well as contributing individual and collaborative works. The accompanying book, ‘The Secret to a Good Life’ by Bob and Roberta Smith, explores the role of women artists, gender prejudice in the art world, and the benefits of drawing every day. It contains images of the work of all three artists and further disseminates the research.
Bob and Roberta Smith’s mother, the artist Deirdre Borlase, regularly exhibited in the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition. In this project, marking the RA’s 250th anniversary, members of Borlase’s family explored her story, and that of other – sometimes strained – relationships between women and the Royal Academy over its history. The exhibition included paintings by Borlase from the 1940-80s, and a portrait of her by her husband, artist Frederick Brill. Voorsanger’s contribution was to explore the story of women artists at the Royal Academy through this lens of the artists’ own family history.
Three new sculptures were displayed in the exhibition, including ‘This is Angelica Kauffman RA’, a large-scale collaborative work by Smith and Voorsanger. Kauffman was a founder member of the RA, and the only female Academician for over a hundred years. The sculpture represented Kauffman alongside other female artists. Smith created the sculptural structure, and on this were placed 15 separate painted portraits by Voorsanger, of Kauffmann and other female artists.
The portfolio of supporting information includes evidence of the research aims, context and processes which led to new insights. It also includes images of Voorsanger’s portrait works, installation views of the exhibition and a PDF of the book.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
