Sue Arrowsmith (1950–2014) was a British artist notable for her experimental photographic and mixed media compositions.

Biography

Born in

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

, Arrowsmith graduated from the

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public university, public research university in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. The University of Nottingham belongs t ...

in 1971 before studying at the

Slade School of Fine Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

in London from 1973 to 1975. Her first solo show was in London in 1982, and in 1985 she had a solo exhibition, which included a series of self-portraits, at the

Serpentine Galleries The Serpentine Galleries are two contemporary art galleries in Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Central London. Recently rebranded to just Serpentine, the organisation is split across Serpentine South, previously known as the Serpentine Gallery, ...

in London's

Kensington Gardens Kensington Gardens, once the private gardens of Kensington Palace, are among the Royal Parks of London. The gardens are shared by the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and sit immediately to the west of Hyde P ...

. During 1986 and 1987 Arrowsmith was the 'artist in residence' at Wolfson College and at the

Kettle's Yard Kettle's Yard is an art gallery and house in Cambridge, England. The director of the art gallery is Andrew Nairne. Both the house and gallery reopened in February 2018 after an expansion of the facilities. Kettle's Yard galleries, shop and caf ...

Gallery in Cambridge. From 1987, works by Arrowsmith featured on several occasions in the

John Moores Painting Prize The John Moores Painting Prize is a biennial award to the best contemporary painting, submission is open to the public. The prize is named for Sir John Moores, noted philanthropist, who established the award in 1957. The winning work and short-li ...

exhibition in Liverpool. Examples of her work were also included in the 1988 ''Excavations'' group show in Vienna and Southampton and in ''Photography Now'' at

Tate Liverpool Tate Liverpool is an art gallery and museum in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, and part of Tate, along with Tate St Ives, Cornwall, Tate Britain, London, and Tate Modern, London. The museum was an initiative of the Merseyside Development Corpo ...

and the

Victoria & Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

during 1988 and 1989. Her photographs also featured in the

Whitechapel Gallery The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery in Whitechapel on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The original building, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opened in 1901 as one of the fir ...

's 2000 review show of experimental British art, ''Live in Your Head:Concept and Experiment in Britain 1965-1975''. Arrowsmith was a regular exhibitor with the Anthony Reynolds Gallery and after her death the Gallery donated a small number of her works to the

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Arrowsmith, Sue 1950 births 2014 deaths 20th-century English women artists 21st-century English women artists 20th-century British women photographers 21st-century British women photographers Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art Alumni of the University of Nottingham Artists from Lancashire British contemporary artists English women photographers Fine art photographers