City’s treasure on way to the USA! (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

City’s treasure on way to the USA!

11:20pm Saturday 21st November 2009

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An iconic piece of artwork which is part of Bradford’s collection has been loaned to a New York gallery as part of a special exhibition.

Owned by Bradford Council’s museums and galleries, Housewives with Steak Knives was created by British conceptual artist Sutapa Biswas.

It is currently on display at the Neuberger Museum in New York for the exhibition British Subjects: Identity and Self-Fashioning 1967 – 2009.

There are more than 60 pieces of work on display including videos, paintings, sculpture and photography in the exhibition which runs until December 13.

The exhibition invites people to consider the ways we think about race and nationality and notions of Britishness, identity and subjectivity.

Nilesh Mistry, the Council’s museum officer for international art, said it was one of a number of pieces by the same artist owned by the authority.

Mr Mistry said: “Four large cartridge paper panels are taped together with masking tape and this has then been stuck on to a stretched canvas. The work itself is in oil pastels.”

The piece itself was created in 1985 to 1986 and features pastels, acrylic and xerox collage on paper, mounted on canvas. It is 2.5 metres by nearly 3 metres in size, and was added to the Council’s collection in 1994 and exhibited at Cartwright Hall. It was painted when the artist was still a student at Leeds University and is one of her most reproduced works.

It is a self-portrait of Indian-born Biswas as the multi-armed Hindu Goddess Kali.

Councillor Anne Hawkesworth, the Council’s executive member for environment and culture, said: “This exhibition will look at British culture and what it means to be British in a completely new way.”

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