Looking to Sea : Britain Through the Eyes of its Artists

'Lily Le Brun sweeps the beaches of the past century of British art, collecting treasures from sea, shingle and shore. Artists featured range from Vanessa Bell to Tracey Emin, Alfred Wallis to Martin Parr' - Sunday Times

An elegant guide to a century of seaside art

Looking to Sea considers ten pivotal artworks, from Vanessa Bell's Studland Beach, one of the first modernist paintings in Britain, to Paul Nash's work bearing the scars of his experience in the trenches and Martin Parr's photographs of seaside resorts in the 1980s, which raised controversial questions of class. Each of the startlingly different pieces, created between 1912 and 2015, opens a window onto big ideas, from modernism and the sublime, the impact of the world wars and colonialism, to issues crucial to our world today like the environment and nationhood. In this astonishingly perceptive portrait of the twentieth century, art critic Lily Le Brun brings a fresh eye to a vast idea, offering readers an imaginative new way of seeing our island nation.

A Times Art Books of the Year 2022

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