Deanna Petherbridge on Drawing

Ten years ago, I went to a series of lectures by Deanna Petherbridge called Drawing towards Enquiry at the National Gallery in London in 2006. She is the only person I know who has been both Professor of Drawing at the Royal College of Art and the Arnolfini Professor of Drawing at both the University of the West of England, Bristol  and the University of London.

Tomorrow a new exhibition of her work Deanna Petherbridge opens to the public at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester (which is one I'm fond of as I used to pass it every day on my way home from school).  Dates are 2 December 2016 – 4 June 2017

Travelling extensively through Europe, India, the Middle East and Far East, her detailed monochrome drawings are inspired by diverse landscapes, cities and cultures: from mathematical patterns of Islamic design, to rustic Umbrian dwellings and Manchester’s industrial cast-iron structures. Detailed geometric studies or free inventions in brush and wash, her distinctive works deal with the impact of colonialism, industrialisation and warfare. Her passionate condemnation of present conflicts is expressed in the 2016 triptych 'The Destruction of the City of Homs'.

Cover of
Deanna Petherbridge: Drawing and Dialogue

A new book about drawing Deanna Petherbridge: Drawing and Dialogue has also been published by Circa Press and the launch is this evening.

Previously she has published

• 1991 - The Primacy of Drawing: An Artist’s View which led to
• 2010 - The Primacy of Drawing: Histories and Theories of Practice - which I rather think was being trialled at the lecturtes I heard in 2006. The book was certainly underway at that time.

Her academic credentials are impressive:

• 1995 to 2001 - Professor of Drawing at the Royal College of Art from where she launched the Centre for Drawing Research, the first doctoral programme in drawing in the UK and ran an extensive course of drawing workshops and open lectures for the whole college.
• 2002 to 2006 - Arnolfini Professor of Drawing at the University of the West of England, Bristol
• 2007 to 2009 - two year Research Professorship at the University of Lincoln 
• 2009 to 2012 - Visiting Professor of Drawing at the University of the Arts London. 

Deanna Petherbridge CBE is an artist, writer and curator primarily concerned with drawing. (Her profile on her website)

Deanna Petherbridge in her Drawing Studio

This is a video about Deanna Petherbridge talking about Drawing. She's very articulate and intense and you need to concentrate to follow what she is saying. It's fascinating to hear her talking again ten years after I first heard her talking about drawing.



The Drawing towards Enquiry. Enquiry towards Drawing lectures in 2006 covered

• The Poetics of Line
• Expressive Bodies and Personal Identities
• Playing with the Provisional: Sketching in Art & Design Practice - see my review Playing with the Provisional
• Caricature, Crassness and Cruelty - see my review Crassness and Cruelty
• Obsessive Drawing
• Mickey Mouse and Manga: Drawing and Popular Culture.