Description

Shortlisted for the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize 2022

Longlisted for the William M B Berger Prize for British Art History 2022

A boldly original work that tells the powerful stories of a group of extraordinary women as glimpsed through their still life paintings

**Picked as an Art Book of the Year 2021 by the Guardian**

‘As seductive as it is scholarly … Riveting’ Financial Times

‘A wonderfully rich, deeply researched page-turner … Sumptuous, precise and bewitching’ Jennifer Higgie

‘Playful, provocative … Her attentive, evocative prose renderings of paintings are pleasures in themselves’ Times Literary Supplement

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Lemons gleam in a bowl. Flowers fan out softly in a vase. A door swings open in a sparsely furnished room. What is contained in a still life – and what falls out of the frame?

For women artists in the early twentieth century, including Ethel Sands, Nina Hamnett, Vanessa Bell and Gwen John, who lived in and around the Bloomsbury Group, the still life was a conduit for their lives, their rebellions, their quiet loves for men and women. Gluck, who challenged the framing of her gender and her art, painted flowers arranged by the woman she loved; Dora Carrington, a Slade School graduate, recorded eggs on a table at Tidmarsh Mill, where she built a richly fulfilling if delicate life with Lytton Strachey.

But for every artist we remember, there is one we have forgotten, who leaves only elusive traces, whose art was replaced by being a mother or wife, whose remaining artworks lie dusty in archives or attics.

In this boldly original blend of group biography and art criticism, Rebecca Birrell brings these shadowy figures into the light and conducts a dazzling investigation into the structures of intimacy that make – and dismantle – our worlds.

‘Unusual and refreshing … Brilliant’ Leanne Shapton

‘A brilliant book … A truly radical aesthetics fit for the twenty-first century at last!’ Therese Oulton

‘[A] wonderful book. I am impressed and fascinated. It is beautifully written’ Celia Paul

‘A magnificent debut by one of Britain’s most electrifying new talents’ Camilla Grudova

‘A bold, unusual book, filled with archival research, exuberant ideas and a determination to counter misogyny’ Diana Souhami, RA Magazine

Publisher Review

Blending flights of poetic rhapsody with more traditional critical language, This Dark Country is as seductive as it is scholarly ... Riveting * Financial Times * [A] wonderful book. I am impressed and fascinated. It is beautifully written. Each woman artist, in this superb book, addresses the need to transform the confines she inhabits into a space of empowerment. These artists all lived and worked in the first part of the twentieth century yet their legacy continues to be relevant -- Celia Paul A brilliant book ... A truly radical aesthetics fit for the twenty-first century at last! -- Therese Oulton Birrell's blend of art criticism and biography works best when it is tethered to real-world calculation. She is particularly good at teasing out the stubborn material facts that underpin the most serene of still lifes -- Kathryn Hughes * Guardian * [An] unusual and refreshing group biography of artists ... I loved Birrell's brilliant re-apprehension of Rodin's The Thinker through the experience of Gwen John. And her explanation of the magnitude of rooms and importance of room, in these women's lives -- Leanne Shapton Extraordinary ... She poses questions, makes playful, provocative suggestions, and invites us into wondering with her. Her attentive, evocative prose renderings of paintings are pleasures in themselves ... In this considered, bracing and elegantly constructed book, such alternative households are properly recognized as the realms of possibility that they were -- Sarah Watling * Times Literary Supplement * Deeply thoughtful and eye-opening ... This book is a brilliant art-history lesson as well as a window into women's lives ... A celebration of all things queer ... The strong-mindedness of these women will knock you over * Daily Mail * [A] beautiful, bold new book ... explores the desires and ambitions of women artists, moving beyond the frame to reflect lives that rarely fit convention -- Chloee Ashby * Elephant * Rebecca Birrell urges us to ask new questions about gender and genre, domesticity and work ... At its heart is the challenge of understanding the lives and works of women whose desires and ambitions often demanded secrecy, evasion and ambiguity -- Norma Clarke * Literary Review * A beautifully written and important art historical work, This Dark Country is a magnificent debut by one of Britain's most electrifying new talents. I cannot wait to read what she writes next! -- Camilla Grudova, author of THE DOLL's ALPHABET Birrell's exquisite knack for storytelling and visual analysis draws you deep into the private worlds of ten women artists. You will be left utterly spellbound by their radical lives and the sheer inquisitiveness of their paintings. A lucid insight into a trailblazing art history - too often overlooked - at the very start of the 20th century -- Katy Hessel This Dark Country is a wonderfully rich, deeply researched page-turner about six women artists from the early 20th century and their relationship to creativity and intimacy. Rebecca Birrell's prose is sumptuous, precise and bewitching - she responds to works of art and the lives of the people who created them with an equivalent imaginative flourish. I can't recommend it enough -- Jennifer Higgie [I was] captivated by this extraordinary book - stayed up way too late scribbling my astonishment on all the pages -- Doireann Ni Ghriofa, author of 'A Ghost in the Throat' This is a bold, unusual book, filled with archival research, exuberant ideas and a determination to counter misogyny -- Diana Souhami * RA Magazine * From these artists' still-lives Birrell conjures lives that simmer with desire, queerness, and resistance ... Radically contemporary ... By envisioning and championing these women's experiments in living, Birrell makes space for possibility. In This Dark Country, she lets in light -- Eloise Hendy * Frieze * Impressive ... There is huge skill in [This Dark Country's] omnivorous, discursive reading of the paintings, letters, diaries and short stories of the period ... Birrell reaches effortlessly for apt references ... Whatever follows from this author I will read -- Hermione Eyre * Apollo Magazine * Unprecedented and important ... This Dark Country is about practices of still life painting by women in the early twentieth century; I read it, also, as a beautifully considered, timely and invigorating treatise on the co-implications of art-making and home-making * Kate Briggs * Provocative ... Imaginative ... In a striking act of collective empathy, Birrell brings to life not only the interior worlds of the painters and their work, but also the support network - of female friends and lovers and domestic staff - that enabled them * Guardian, The best art books of 2021 *