Children's art: the Ballets Russes
12-26 October 2009
This exhibition of children's paintings of London performances by the Ballets Russes were all made by pupils of Marion Richardson in 1917 -19, when she was teaching at Dudley Girls High School. Trained at Birmingham School of Art, Marion Richardson (1892-1946) was a pioneer of the child art movement who developed methods of teaching art that were far removed from the traditional emphasis on copying and technical skill. Instead she aimed to arouse children's visual awareness, to encourage self-expression and to enable pupils to evaluate their own work. A friend of Roger Fry and Herbert Read, she pioneered the exhibition of children's work as art and introduced craft education into prisons.
One of the methods Marion Richardson developed was the 'word-picture'. She would give the children a vivid description of a scene or event, asking them to visualise the picture it evoked and paint their mental image of it as soon as they could see it clearly. When she met Roger Fry in 1917 and showed him some of the children's paintings, he was especially pleased with those they had made from her description of the Ballets Russes's productions of Le Soleil du Nuit and Children's Tales. In March 1919, he included some of them in an exhibition of children's art at the Omega Workshops.
The exhibition runs from 12 to 26 October 2009 in the print corridor of the School of Art in Margaret Street. It is open weekdays only, from 9.30am to 5.30pm. The paintings form part of the Marion Richardson archive. If you require further information, please contact Fiona Waterhouse on 0121 331 6981.