We (Hayley Field and Jacqueline Utley) are really excited to announce our new Obscure Secure project working with Towner Eastbourne.

The project looks at the work of artist Kathleen Walne (1915-2011). Her work is included in Towner Eastbourne’s collection and will be part of their upcoming exhibitions around gallerist and collector Lucy Wertheim ‘A Life in Art: Lucy Wertheim’ and ‘Reuniting the Twenties Group’, 11 June to 25 September 2022.

We fell in love with Walne’s work at Christchurch Mansion (Ipswich) back in 2014. Since 2017 we have been researching Kathleen’s work, we have met with her family and cataloged her work and archive material.

We will be working in residence at Towner Eastbourne during the Wertheim exhibitions, sharing our research processes and inviting visitors to become active researchers. We are producing a new publication that will be launched in September 2022 at a discussion event, which will focus on issues around gender imbalance and the underrepresentation of women artists in collections.

We are very grateful to Arts Council National Lottery Project Grants for funding this project.

Images: With kind permission from Hilary Ward.

Photo credit: Douglas Atfield