Burning the Box of Beautiful Things: The Development of a Postmodern Sensibility Book

Alex Seago's book has been inspired by his desire to understand and discover the origins of postmodern culture in Britain. Arguing that postwar art schools provided a vital crucible for the development of a particularly English cultural sensibility, he focuses on cultural change at the Royal College of Art, London, during the 1950s and 1960s. The students' attack on the English "box of beautiful things" (a term used by a former student to describe the neo-Romantic, neo-Victorian, highly decorative tastes of some RCA tutors) took several forms which eventually resulted in the Pop Art produced by the 1959-1962 generation (Boshier, Phillips, Jones, Hockney et al.). Seago's study of the emergence of English postmodernism is based on content analysis of a central archive, ARK: The Journal of the Royal College of Art, and interviews with ARK's former editors, art editors, and contributors including Len Deighton, novelist and art editor of ARK 10; Clifford Hatts, student at the RCA 1946-48 and later Head of the Design Group, BBC; Peter Blake (RCA Painting School, 1953-56); Robyn Denny (RCA Painting School, 1954-57).Read More