About

David Dimbleby has been Towner’s Chair for ten years, but in September 2024, he will step down from this role. To mark this momentous occasion, he has been invited to curate Drawing the Unspeakable with his daughter, artist and writer Liza Dimbleby.

To David and Liza, drawing is a medium that has the power to convey complex meaning and intense emotion. This exhibition will feature works that communicate experiences that are beyond words, navigating the impasse of speech to illustrate what can be shown when words fail.

Numbering over 100 works, this exhibition draws on the intensity of human experience, a translation of an event or moment specific to each artist. These challenge the conventions of speech; disasters, war, displacement, and destruction, mental illness, grief, loss, dreams, memories and imagining.

A wide range of artists will be included, such as David Bomberg, Barbara Hepworth, Madge Gill and James Gillray, drawn both from the Towner Collection and from other Collections such as the British Museum, Bethlem Museum of the Mind and Ben Uri Gallery and Museum. The works will straddle both modern and contemporary artists including Denzil Forrester, Emma Talbot, Ansel Krut and Emma Woffenden. The Towner works will mainly be chosen from drawings in the Collection such as Dennis Creffield, Study for 'The Resource of Loneliness', 1978, Elisabeth Frink, Drawing for Harbinger Bird, 1960 and Eric Ravilious, Three Brothers, undated.

Photo by David Edwards.