In Focus projects examine artworks in Tate’s collection from a range of perspectives, reflecting contemporary approaches to object-based scholarship. They are typically written by a number of specialists from different disciplines and comprise linked essays that explore particular aspects of the works’ making and history in depth. The projects often draw on Tate’s own research resources, featuring materials found in conservation files, Gallery Records and Tate Archive.
Seven Lives and a Dream 1980–91, printed 2014, by Sheba Chhachhi
Photographs that challenge journalistic representations of activism and agency in the Indian women’s movement
Abstract Kinetic Collage Painting with Sound 1914 by Duncan Grant
Through its combination of movement, light, colour and music, this artwork made a radical contribution to British modernism
Burn Hole 1961 by Henk Peeters
Burn Hole is infused with both the painterly style of art informel and the anti-art gestures of the Nul group
Around the Blues 1957, 1962–3 by Sam Francis
Around the Blues was painted when Sam Francis was travelling the world and developing a new approach to abstract space
The Unknown Political Prisoner (Defiant and Triumphant) 1952 by Theodore Roszak
This small model for an unrealised monument was the first work of post-war American sculpture to enter Tate’s collection.
Blood of a Poet Box 1965–8 by Eleanor Antin
Blood of a Poet Box 1965–8 was Eleanor Antin’s first conceptual artwork, introducing the themes of identity, originality and genius to her artistic practice.
Cathedral 1950 by Norman Lewis
Cathedral became one of the first works by an African American artist to be shown at the Venice Biennale.
String Composition 128 1964 by Sue Fuller
Sue Fuller’s construction testifies to the often overlooked influence of craft traditions on the development of modernist abstraction.
Adam 1951, 1952 by Barnett Newman
The American abstract expressionist artist Barnett Newman considered his painting Adam 1951, 1952 a major achievement in his efforts to visualise what he called the ‘metaphysical content’ of art.
Wrinkle 1968 by Liliana Porter
Liliana Porter’s Wrinkle 1968 recasts printmaking as a conceptual art form rather than a labour-intensive craft.
Pompeii 1959 by Hans Hofmann
Pompeii 1959 gained an international reputation in the 1960s, representing Hans Hofmann and his ‘slab’ paintings across the US, Europe and South America.
Salt Flat 1968 by Dennis Oppenheim
This In Focus explores Oppenheim’s Salt Flat through the systems aesthetics of critic Jack Burnham.
Meryon 1960–1 by Franz Kline
Franz Kline’s late work Meryon 1960–1 calls into question established ideas about abstract expressionism, including its essential ‘Americanness’.
Silo 1963–4 by James Rosenquist
This In Focus presents Rosenquist’s Silo as a reflection on the image of the female consumer in the 1950s and 1960s
Family Jules: NNN (No Naked Niggahs) 1974 by Barkley L. Hendricks
The first in-depth study of this key nude portrait by Barkley L. Hendricks
Women Singing II 1966 by Willem de Kooning
This In Focus explores Women Singing II – a painting inspired by pop singers that Willem de Kooning saw on television – as the product of a shifting
Walls Paper 1972 by Gordon Matta-Clark
First displayed in a partially dilapidated artist-run space in New York, Walls Paper’s photo-silkscreens of cracking, crumbling urban walls mirrored the site’s own deterioratio
Surface Substitution on 36 Plates 1972 by Jennifer Bartlett
This In Focus presents the first in-depth study of this key work of conceptual art from the 1970s
Static 2009 by Steve McQueen
Filmed from a helicopter circling the Statue of Liberty in New York, Steve McQueen’s Static fixes its gaze on this most iconic representation of freedom
Evidence 1977 by Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel
This In Focus examines how Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel’s Evidence complicates the conventions and assumptions of photographic truth.
Gift 1961–2 by Kenneth Noland
Given by the artist to prominent art critic Clement Greenberg, Gift exemplifies Greenberg’s taste for high modernist abstraction.
Dancers on a Plane 1980–1 by Jasper Johns
This In Focus asks whether Dancers on a Plane – a key painting from Johns’s ‘crosshatch’ period – can be seen as a work about the shifts and transitions taking place in the artist’s style and career in the early 1980s.
The Deluge 1920 by Winifred Knights
Fresh research into Knights’s dramatic depiction of the biblical flood charts its relationship to religion, conflict, dance and gender, and suggests new art historical sources for the painting.
From the Freud Museum 1991–6 by Susan Hiller
Psychoanalytic ideas, ethnographic display and the artist’s free associations between physical remains, personal memories and historical events shape this in-depth new study
Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows exhibited 1831 by John Constable
New research into Constable’s brooding, dramatic and compositionally complex Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows
Abstract Painting c.1914 by Vanessa Bell
This In Focus presents the first sustained analysis of this enigmatic painting – now regarded as a key work in Bell’s oeuvre and in the histories of British and European modernism.
Peter Darnell Muilman, Charles Crokatt and William Keable in a Landscape c.1750, by Thomas Gainsborough
Offering a multi-disciplinary discussion of Gainsborough’s early triple portrait, this project considers the painting as a depiction of polite and refined society
Waiting for Tear Gas 1999–2000 by Allan Sekula
Examining Allan Sekula’s ‘anti-journalistic’ manifesto Waiting for Tear Gas in a new light, this In Focus considers the work as a radical form of portraiture and of street photography, a critique of the journalistic photo-essay and a profound anti-capitalist statement.
Pegwell Bay, Kent – a Recollection of October 5th 1858 ?1858–60 by William Dyce
Using contemporary reviews of this major work, the artist’s own papers and a visit to the original site, this In Focus asks: is this a religious painting, a religious painting in disguise, or a painting about religious doubt?
Parts of the Face: French Vocabulary Lesson 1961 by Larry Rivers
Through analysis of source material, the artist’s creative process and new archival resources, this In Focus investigates new interpretations for this pivotal painting’s reception in Paris at a time of artistic and political turbulence.
Orthodox Boys 1948 by Bernard Perlin
Tate’s first acquisition of a work by a contemporary American artist after 1945, Orthodox Boys is charged with the anxieties and aspirations of Jews in post-war New York. Its graffitied wall offers a constellation of names from the artist’s own life, examined here in depth for the first time.
Black Wall 1959 by Louise Nevelson
Tracing the early evolution of Black Wall, this In Focus reveals Nevelson as a collector and scavenger on the streets of New York, and features a newly digitised interview with the artist by critic David Sylvester.
Mousehold Heath, Norwich c.1818–20 by John Crome
Offering new information on techniques and materials as well as contemporary accounts of the reception of the work, this In Focus explores this unfolding Norfolk landscape, seeking greater understanding of the artist’s motivations, the painting’s title and its likely date of execution
Heroic Symbols 1969 by Anselm Kiefer
The most detailed investigation of this photographic series to date, this In Focus explores the ongoing use of the prints in Kiefer’s work and positions Heroic Symbols in the wider cultural and political context of post-war Germany.
The Doll’s House 1899–1900 by William Rothenstein
An early sketchbook owned by Tate, analysed here for the first time, informs this thorough investigation of Rothenstein’s early development, focusing on a painting long considered the artist’s most important work.
The Girl Chewing Gum 1976 by John Smith
This In Focus situates Smith’s film historically, analyses its intersections with film and visual theory, and explores the changing conditions of its exhibition and reception.
On Three Posters 2004 by Rabih Mroué
Exploring how On Three Posters advances the intellectual and creative production of the performance upon which it was founded, this In Focus also examines the significance of the work in relation to the image politics of the Lebanese Left.
Wrestlers 1914, cast 1965, by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska
Drawing on material in the Tate Archive and early twentieth-century sports periodicals, and using previously unexamined material about Gaudier-Brzeska’s interest in wrestling, this project sheds new light on the sculpture and its cast.
The Singer exhibited 1889 and Applause 1893 by Edward Onslow Ford
This In Focus discusses the creation and reception of these two sculptures in the context of the Victorian enthusiasm for ancient Egypt, providing the first translations of some of the hieroglyphs found on their decorative bases.