British Art History - Forgotten Chapters with Professor Tamar Garb

A conversation between Pr Tamar Garb and Dr Christine Eyene

Join us at ERL Gallery for the first in a series of conversations with South African artists and art historians as part of the public programme associated to the exhibition George Hallett: Home and Exile.

The programme launches on Wednesday 3 June with art historian and curator Professor Tamar Garb who will discuss the art and life of artist Dumile Feni (1942-1991). Dumile was one of the first Black South African visual artists to live in exile in London and New York from 1968 to 1991.

The conversation will shed light on the artist’s experience in London in the 70s, building on Garb’s research into material from the Grosvenor Gallery and the seminal Contemporary African Art exhibition at Camden Art Centre in 1970.

—

Biography

Tamar Garb is Durning Lawrence Professor in the History of Art. She graduated from the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town with a BA (Art) in 1978. In 1980, she was awarded an MA in Art Education from the Institute of Education, University of London and in 1982 she graduated with a MA in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art. While working part time in secondary and further education, she completed her PhD at the Courtauld Institute which was awarded in 1991. She was appointed as Lecturer at the Courtauld in 1988 and at UCL in 1989 and was promoted to reader in 1995 and professor in 2001.

She has published widely on questions of gender and sexuality in Modern and Contemporary Art as well as on photography from Africa, the work of women artists and feminist aesthetics. Her curatorial practice includes ‘Gauguin: Maker of Myth’, Tate 2011, ‘Figures & Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography’, V&A, 2011, ‘Distance & Desire: Encounters with the African Archive’, Walther Coll. 2014, ‘Conversations in Letters & Lines: William Kentridge and Vivienne Koorland, Fruitmarket, 2016, ‘Made Routes: Berni Searle and Vivienne Koorland’, Richard Saltoun Gallery, 2019 and ‘Beyond the Binary: Santu Mofokeng and David Goldblatt’, Walther Collection, 2023.

—

This event is supported by LJMU’s Institute of Art and Technology (IAT) and Enhancing Research Culture Grant.

—

Photo: George Hallett, Dumile. New York, 1983. Courtesy of George Hallett Research Collection.

Find out more on this event and the exhibition George Hallett: Home and Exile.