3 February
–
23 April 2006
Section
2: Looking at BritainJack Smith b. 1928
Mother Bathing Child 1953
© the artist
Jack Smith was one of a group of artists including John Bratby, Derrick Greaves and Edward Middleditch, championed by critic John Berger, who came to be known as the Kitchen Sink artists. Kitchen Sink realism concentrated on unheroic depictions of the everyday in still life, landscape and industrial scenes. The domestic scene depicted in this painting by Smith typifies the painterly representation of everyday reality associated with the group. It was this subject which prompted the label of 'Kitchen Sink' painting, coined by critic David Sylvester - a description disliked by the painters concerned.
