Arts & Culture

The UEA Collection Of Abstract And Constructivist Art, Architecture And Design might sound a little hard-going, but a visit to this exhibition at the world-renowned Sainsbury Centre For Visual Arts (SCVA) will take you on contemporary design journey that spans nearly a century.

The collection itself was founded in 1968 and features sculpture, painting, graphics and design, together with architectural models, stage sets and furniture from artists including David Bomberg, Marcel Breuer, Gerald Summers and Le Corbusier.

"This collection features painting, printmaking, sculpture as well as furniture design and architectural models," said Amanda Geitner, the keeper of the UEA Collection and head of collections and exhibitions at the SCVA.

"In the fine arts, in painting and so forth, - 'abstract and constructiveness' tends to mean turning away from representing the natural world.

"What all of these arts are interested in is using key elements like bold colour, geometry and proportion - to make work that is pleasing or satisfying on its own terms, without looking like the natural world," she added.

Response to architecture

The UEA Collection started as a response to the modernity of the University Of East Anglia's architecture.

Painting by Sonia Delaunay (detail)

In 1968 the UEA was one of England's 'new universities' with a bold concrete campus designed by architect Denys Lasdun to reflect the ambitious inter-disciplinary approach of the young institution.

"Although the UEA Collection was developed in response to Lasdun's campus, the artists' use of mathematical systems and repeated geometrical forms make the works in the UEA Collection the perfect complement to the architecture of Norman Foster's Sainsbury Centre today," said Amanda.

The UEA Collection was begun in 1968 with a grant of £10,000 from the University Council to form a collection of 20th century art. The collection moved to the Sainsbury Centre when it opened in 1978 and has grown to include more than 400 objects.

The earliest group of works in the exhibition date from between circa 1910 and 1930 and reflect the origins of a modern 'movement'. New pieces have been added to the collection ever since.

From Le Corbusier to Moholy-Nagy

Works in the 1910-1930 section of the show include a Le Corbusier chair and architectural model, a painting by Sonia Delaunay, Rietveld chairs and 2D works by Wassily Kandinsky and Lazlo Moholy-Nagy.

Artists began making work, now described as 'constructivist', in the second decade of the 20th century.

The First World War and the creation of a new social order through Russia's Revolution were instrumental in causing many artists to rethink how art and design shapes the way we live.

A visual language of order and clarity drew inspiration from other abstract movements but more importantly, embraced the possibilities presented by advances in technology combined with mathematics, science and architecture.

"Early on I think this work came about as artists, designers and architects got together as they felt they really had a role to play in building new, revolutionary industrial societies," said Amanda.

"I think later on some of those utopian ideals after the Second World War kind of disappeared, but you were still left with a real interest in volume, proportion, in geometry and an engagement with new materials.

Plywood Armchair

"Gerald Summers, for example, was one of the designers who very early on exploited the new technology of heat-molding plywood."

Plywood Armchair by Gerald Summers

Created towards the end of 1933, Summers signature piece is the Plywood Armchair.

"This chair is so elegant and so beautifully curved, but when you stand in front of it you realise it's cut from just a single piece of plywood – it's one of these things that looks deceptively simple but is very, very beautiful," said Amanda.

The exhibition also feature two other major groups of work.

The first includes a room setting with Isokon furniture, the work of émigré artists who came to England during the Second World War at the invitation of Isokon's founder Jack Pritchard after the Nazis closed the Bauhaus - a school established in Dessau, Germany by a group of architects, engineers and artists led by Walter Gropius.

The second is a group described as The British Constructionists, which includes artists such as Victor Pasmore, Mary and Kenneth Martin, Peter Lowe, Gillian Wise and Anthony Hill.

The works include 3D constructions, sculptures and works on canvas that use a strong simple palette of colours, clean lines and geometric shapes.

"I'm hoping visitors will take away a little bit of 20th century history and an understanding of the role that artists and designers have played in shaping, in colouring that history," said Amanda.

"I hope more than that, people might come and really enjoy and find fascinating work that sounds kind of hard – The UEA Collection Of Abstract And Constructivist Art, Architecture And Design - it sounds terribly intellectual and worthy, but actually it's beautiful work made with simple, clear geometry and a lovely sense of proportion that is just a joy to look at."

Constructed: 40 Years Of The UEA Collection runs at the Sainsbury Centre For Visual Arts until Sunday, 14 December, 2008.

One version of the show will be in place until September, it will then be completely changed to included other items from the collection until the close of the show in December.

Running concurrently is the exhibition Margaret Mellis: A Life in Colour, which celebrates the career of the Suffolk-based artist Margaret Mellis and features more than 60 paintings and sculptures from her extensive career.