What matters to you about family? Do you feel that your family life is represented in art?
Next year Tate Britain is going to host a Great British Art Debate display called Family Matters, looking at representations of the family in British art. We’re also going to have a little taster of the display to whet your appetite, which will be on show from 21 November this year until May 2012.
Here’s where you come in. We have a space at Tate Britain for this ‘taster’, where we’ll show 4 works that address the theme of Family Matters. Nominate one artwork from our collection, and tell us why it means family to you. The exhibition team will then choose their favourite images and comments, which will be displayed together on the walls of Tate Britain!
We’ve created a handy slideshow of works that include family themes for you to look through, and there are some examples below. (The slideshow uses a test version of Art & Artists, our new collection exploring tool – if you have any comments or spot any bugs you’ll be helping us to refine it, so pop them along as well!)
Tabitha Barber, Curator of 17th & 18th Century British Art, will be reviewing all of your ideas. She says, “I’m intrigued to see what our facebook and twitter fans have to say about their families and the families in our collection. We haven’t offered the choice of artwork to the public in this way before, so it’s very exciting to see where you will lead us in our decisions for this display.”
This is your chance to really get involved with the art that’s being shown at Tate!
Here are some works to get you started…
![The Last Day in the Old Home (1862) The Last Day in the Old Home, 1862](../../../wp-content/uploads/2011/06/The-Last-Day-in-the-Old-Home-1862-300x218.jpg)
The Last Day in the Old Home (1862), Robert Martineau
This family is facing the consequences of a spendthrift lifestyle. Their posessions are marked up to be sold at auction, and by the looks of the painting of a horse and rider in the left foreground, it was the father’s fondness for betting on horse races that did it… and his son seems to be following in his footsteps.
![Mrs James Wyatt Jr and her Daughter Sarah (circa 1850) Mrs James Wyatt Jr and her Daughter Sarah (circa 1850)](../../../wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Mrs-James-Wyatt-Jr-and-her-Daughter-Sarah-300x229.jpg)
Mrs James Wyatt Jr and her Daughter Sarah (circa 1850), John Everett Millais
This work by Millais contrasts his own stark, realistic depiction of the mother and child with Raphael’s, which is visible in miniature in this protrait’s background.
![The Smith Family, Fife, Scotland 1989 The Smith Family, Fife, Scotland 1989](../../../wp-content/uploads/2011/06/The-Smith-Family-Fife-Scotland-1989-300x217.jpg)
'The Smith Family, Fife, Scotland 1989' © Thomas Struth
Struth was travelling a great deal in order to photograph buildings around the world, and staying with different families in each place. At the end of his stay, he would take a photograph of the family to remember them. He used long exposure times, meaning the subjects had to sit very still to avoid blurring the photo – creating an effect much like older, formal portrait photography.
What does art mean to you?
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