Domestic Threads: Su Richardson

17 - 30 June 2024

Su richardson

Unfinished Hearts, 1975-1976

Crochet cotton with green crochet needle backed with hand-coloured plaster base affixed with brush. Attached to crochet needle is a hand-written tag.

23 x 9 cm

SOLD

Richard Saltoun Gallery presents an online exhibition by pioneering British artist Su RICHARDSON (b. 1947, based in Birmingham).

Richardson's work is included in Tate’s exhibition Women in Revolt!: Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990, currently touring at the National Galleries of Scotland, and in the Hayward Touring Exhibition Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood, which is travelling to the Midlands Arts Centre (MAC), Birmingham, in June 2024.

Following these two major presentations and the artist’s first institutional retrospective SOFT POWER, presented at Wolverhampton Art Gallery in 2023, Domestic Threads showcases Richardson's earlier as well as most recent works, continuing to reflecting on her use of crochet and her engagement with feminist discourses around domesticity and bodily experiences.

Exclusively for the duration of the online exhibition, prices start at £250.
- Su RICHARDSON
  Love Hearts, 1975-1976
  Tin box and hand-painted plaster cookies
  6.5 x 8.5 cm
  
  Enquire
  
  %3Cdiv%20class%3D%22artist%22%3ESu%20RICHARDSON%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22title_and_year%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_title%22%3ELove%20Hearts%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_year%22%3E1975-1976%3C/span%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22medium%22%3ETin%20box%20and%20hand-painted%20plaster%20cookies%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22dimensions%22%3E6.5%20x%208.5%20cm%3C/div%3E
- Su RICHARDSON
  Sardine Tin Sex Life, 1975-1976
  Sardine tin, cotton, hand-painted wooden clothes pegs with hand-written tag
  9 x 15 cm
- Su RICHARDSON
  A Postal Event About Hearts, 1975-1976
  Six hand-coloured and embellished plaster hearts in gold chocolate box with hand-written tag
  14.5 x 19.5 x 5 cm
  
  Enquire
  
  %3Cdiv%20class%3D%22artist%22%3ESu%20RICHARDSON%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22title_and_year%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_title%22%3EA%20Postal%20Event%20About%20Hearts%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_year%22%3E1975-1976%3C/span%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22medium%22%3ESix%20hand-coloured%20and%20embellished%20plaster%20hearts%20in%20gold%20chocolate%20box%20with%20hand-written%20tag%20%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22dimensions%22%3E14.5%20x%2019.5%20x%205%20cm%20%3C/div%3E
SU RICHARDSON

Vulvacious, 2022

Hand-painted buttons covered with cotton on card

Sheet: 9 x 6 cm
Framed: 18 x 13 cm

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SUR124

Known for her celebration, exploitation and subversion of traditional femininine skills such as crocheting, Richardson revalidated craft as a fine art form and took feminist art of the ‘70s in different directions - fitting her practice around motherhood, work and household tasks. Her humorously subversive aesthetic anticipated contemporary countercultures and movements that combined craft with street art, such as yarn bombing and guerilla knitting, and was a precursor to a younger generation of female British artists who combined visual puns with domestic objects.

"In Birmingham we got together and joined to make the Postal Event. It was a revelation. We'd found a commonality; this shared experience and expression of being female in a male-oriented society gave us strength. We'd found our audience in each other. I think art is a way of recording experience and passing it on, but for a long time, in the visual arts, the communication has been for men. I've since used a lot of crochet: it's a medium I can control. It's a medium that's always been connected with women and with the female experience; as a womanly craft it generally had a utility purpose too".

-Su Richardson, 1987 in Elinor, Gillian (et al.) (Eds). Women and Craft. London: Virago Press, 1987.
- Su RICHARDSON
  Untitled (Cactus), 2022
  Cotton
  8 x 6 cm
- Su RICHARDSON
  Untitled (Cactus), 2022
  Cotton, pins
  10.5 x 6 cm
  
  Enquire
  
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- Su RICHARDSON
  Untitled (Cactus), 2022
  Cotton
  10.5 x 6 cm
- Su RICHARDSON
  Untitled (Cactus), 2022
  Cotton
  12 x 7 cm
  
  Enquire
  
  %3Cdiv%20class%3D%22artist%22%3ESu%20RICHARDSON%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22title_and_year%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_title%22%3EUntitled%20%28Cactus%29%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_year%22%3E2022%3C/span%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22medium%22%3ECotton%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22dimensions%22%3E12%20x%207%20cm%3C/div%3E
SU RICHARDSON

Reconstruction, 2022

Cotton and metalic yarn

50 x 39 x 4 cm

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SUR126

Richardson's use of self-portraiture is constant throughout her practice. She continues to make use of it to engage with feminist discourses with a focus on the bodily experience, including illness and aging.

"Most of my work was done in the 70's and slightly into the 80's. I started making work again two years before lockdown and caught up on the experiences that my body had gone through in those forty years: premenstrual syndrome, pregnancy, stretch marks and menopause".

-Su Richardson, 2023
- Su RICHARDSON
  Heart in My Mouth, 2020
  Crochet
  22 x 12 cm
  
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  %3Cdiv%20class%3D%22artist%22%3ESu%20RICHARDSON%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22title_and_year%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_title%22%3EHeart%20in%20My%20Mouth%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_year%22%3E2020%3C/span%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22medium%22%3ECrochet%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22dimensions%22%3E22%20x%2012%20cm%20%3C/div%3E
- Su RICHARDSON
  Pearlies, 2020
  Crochet and buttons
  12 x 30 cm
  
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  %3Cdiv%20class%3D%22artist%22%3ESu%20RICHARDSON%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22title_and_year%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_title%22%3EPearlies%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_year%22%3E2020%3C/span%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22medium%22%3ECrochet%20and%20buttons%20%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22dimensions%22%3E12%20x%2030%20cm%3C/div%3E
SU RICHARDSON

Pain Glove - For the Lacemakers, 2018

Cotton, lace, plastic

28 x 20 x 8cm

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SUR024

"These works are a nod to the lacemakers and a homage to women's labour. I researched women lacemakers in Nottingham and found out the majority had terrible arthritis in their hands from an early age. If you were a lacemaker for all your life, your hands would be in a tangled state by the time you got to my age".

-Su Richardson, 2023
Portrait of the artist

Biography

Birmingham-based artist Su RICHARDSON (1947 - ) is a pioneer of British Feminist Art and notable contributor to two of the most important art groups of the 1970s - the mail art project ‘Feministo’ and the feminist art collective ‘Fenix.’ Known for her celebration, exploitation and subversion of traditional femininine skills such as crocheting, Richardson revalidated craft as a fine art form and took feminist art of the ‘70s in different directions - fitting her practice around motherhood, work and household tasks.

In the 1970s, together with Monica Ross and Phil Goodall, she formed the Birmingham Women’s Art Group, which was instrumental in co-organising the Postal Art Event that took place across Britain in the mid-1970s. The collective evolved into the ground-breaking project ‘Feministo’ a series of exhibitions and installations around the UK, including the acclaimed presentation ‘Portrait of the Artist as Housewife’ at the ICA, London in 1977.

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Domestic Threads: Su Richardson

Su richardson

SOLD

SU RICHARDSON

SU RICHARDSON

SU RICHARDSON

Biography

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