Deanna Petherbridge (11 February 1939 – 8 January 2024) was a South African and British artist, writer and curator. Petherbridge's practice was drawing-based (predominantly pen and ink drawings on paper), although she also produced large-scale murals and designed for the theatre. Her publications in the area of art and architecture were concerned with contemporary as well as historical matters, and in latter years she concentrated on writing about drawing. The Primacy of Drawing: Histories and Theories of Practice was published June 2010 and curated exhibitions included The Quick and the Dead: Artists and Anatomy, 1997, Witches and Wicked Bodies, 2013. She celebrated a retrospective exhibition of her drawings at Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester (2 December 2016 – 4 June 2017) accompanied by the monograph Deanna Petherbridge: Drawing and Dialogue, Circa Press, 2016.
Life and career Petherbridge was born in Pretoria, South Africa on 11 February 1939. She attended Pretoria High School for Girls and obtained a degree in Fine Art at the University of the Witwatersrand. After a post-graduate year teaching in the department she emigrated to the UK in 1960. In 1967 she acquired a house on the island of Sikinos dividing her studio practice for many years between London and Greece and after 2003 between London and Italy with a studio in Umbria (2004–2015).
After early years as a painter, producing soft-sculpture and sometimes employing anti-war imagery, Petherbridge turned to monochromatic pen and ink drawing as her primary medium in the 1970s. Studies of Islamic art and architecture, vernacular building and historical fortifications made during early travels in Europe, the Maghreb and Middle East were the basis of early exhibitions of geometric drawings;Philip Rawson, Design, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1988 later Hindu temple architecture, ruins and vernacular structures became an important source for drawings.Der Traum vom Raum: gemalte Architektur aus 7 Jahrhunderten, Kurt Löcher (ed.) Marburg: W. Hitzeroth 1986 Her work continues to employ architectonic metaphors and in recent years she has become increasingly interested in reflections on place and landscape."The Impossibility of Landscape", FUKT Magazine for Contemporary Drawing, No. 11, 2012, pp.75–79 Symbolic representations of war were the subject of the 1980s around the time of the Falkland conflict.Hayward Annual '78, Hayward Gallery, London: Arts Council of Great Britain 1978 Geometry of Rage, Bristol: Arnolfini 1984 These have again become the dominant theme for large multi-panelled drawings, such as The Destruction of the City of Homs, 2016 (Tate, London; on display in Walk Through British Art: 60 Years).Online interview with Richard Bright in Interalia Online Magazine January 2016. https://www.interaliamag.org/interviews/deanna-petherbridge/ In celebration of drawing as a portable, immediate and expeditious medium, Petherbridge has produced work in other venues than her studio while undertaking drawing residencies at Manchester City Art Gallery, UK(1982) Lalit Kala Akademi Studios Calcutta (British Council sponsored) (1986), Monash University, Melbourne, Australia (2003), Beaconhouse National University, Lahore, Pakistan (2005) and the National Art School, Sydney (2011).Deanna Petherbridge, Drawings 1968–1982, Manchester City Art Gallery and Warwick Arts Trust, LondonTemples and Tenements: The Indian Drawings of Deanna Petherbridge, Seagull Books Calcutta in association with Fischer Fine Art London, 1987 Two Cities Two Modernities, essay by Deanna Petherbridge, Monash University, Melbourne 2003
Petherbridge's teaching career included sessional lectureships at the Architectural Association, London (1981–85), the Fine Art departments of the University of Reading and Middlesex Polytechnic (1984–1987). She was appointed Professor of Drawing at the Royal College of Art (1995 -2001) where she launched the Centre for Drawing Research, the first doctoral programme in drawing in the UK. She was Arnolfini Professor of Drawing at the University of the West of England, Bristol (2002–2006) (appointed Emeritus Professor of Drawing in 2006) and Professor of Drawing at the University of Lincoln (2007–2009). She has supervised a number of PhD students and has delivered lectures, conference and symposium papers internationally.The Remains of Drawing, 10 February 2012, in the Symposium "Is Drawing Dead?" Yale School of Architecture, 9th – 11 February https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGetr5al_hg Extended lecture series in the UK include: Contemporary Drawing: Exploring the Unknown, Tate Millbank (January–March 1997), the BBC Radio Three broadcast series The Outline Around the Shadow (10–14 February 1997) and Drawing towards Enquiry at the National Gallery London (February–March 2006) in association with Camberwell College of Arts.Sue Arnold, review of The Outline around the Shadow Radio series. The Observer, London, 16 February 1997Tom Lubbock, "As seen on Radio 3", The Independent, 18 February 1997Drawing towards Enquiry. Enquiry towards Drawing. MAKING A MARK 18 January 2006 https://makingamark.blogspot.co.uk/2006/01/drawing-towards-enquiry-enquiry.html She has undertaken extensive lecture tours in other countries, some under the auspices of the British Council for example in India (1985-6 and 1987-8) and South East Asia (1994–95). There have also been lecture tours in Australia (1995, 2003, 2011, 2015), Pakistan (2005), USA (2010), Puerto Rico (2013).
Her public commissions include designing sets and costumes for The Royal Ballet in collaboration with choreographer Ashley Page A Broken Set of Rules (1984) and Bloodlines (1990); and One by Nine (1987), choreographer Jennifer Jackson, Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet.Peter Dormer, "Looking Between the Lines" (review of Broken Set of Rules) Designer's Journal, January 1985Design for Performance: From Diaghilev to the Pet Shops Boys, Peter Docherty and Time White (eds.) London: Lund Humphries and Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, 1996 She was commissioned by the Artistic Records Committee of the Imperial War Museum, London (1989).Pen and ink drawing Boeing Assembly Plant, Seattle 1989 https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/21636 She also undertook a mural on four flours for the curved foyer wall of the Symphony Hall, International Conference Centre, Birmingham (1991).Mel Gooding, Public: Art: Space, London & Birmingham: Merrell Holberton Publishers and the Public Art Commissions Agency (PACA), 1998, p.26"Writing on the Wall for Artists: Public art politics" Paul Cheeseright The Financial Times, 29 December 1991"Moral rights: a Case Study" Nicola Solomon & David Mitchell New Law Journal, 6 December 1991"The Draughtsman's Concept", Patricia Morison The Financial Times, 13 December 1991
In 1991 Petherbridge curated the trans-historical touring exhibition The Primacy of drawing: An Artist's View for National Touring, The South Bank Centre and co-selected the collaborative exhibition, Materia Medica: A New Cabinet of Medicine and Art, The Wellcome Institute, London (1995–96).Martin Kemp et al, Materia Medica: A New Cabinet of Medicine and Art, London: The Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1995 This was followed by The Quick and the Dead: Artists and Anatomy, (1997) National Touring for the Arts Council of England. This exhibition moved to an extended showing renamed Corps à vif. Art et anatomie, (1998) at the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Geneva, co-curated with Claude Ritschard and Andrea Carlino. Witches and Wicked Bodies at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, (2013) was re-curated for the Prints and Drawings Gallery at the British Museum (2014–2015) and Artists at Work, was co-curated with Anita Viola Sganzerla, The Courtauld Drawings Gallery, London (2018). Petherbridge has also curated a number of exhibitions of contemporary drawers including Drawing as Vital Practice, Pitzhanger Manor Gallery & House, London (2007) and Narratives of Arrival and Resolution: Abstract Works on Paper, Michael Richardson Contemporary Art, London (2013).
Petherbridge began contributing reviews and articles to Architectural Review in 1979 and has written extensively for specialist journals and the daily press including Architects' Journal, Crafts Magazine, Building Design and the Financial Times in the 1980s, when she ran a regular column in Art Monthly commenting on commissioning, sponsorship and the social structures of visual art communities in the United Kingdom. She has written many catalogue essays and chapters in books and in recent years has published in academic journals on a wide range of contemporary and historical issues in art and architecture, with a particular focus on drawing. She was a Research Scholar at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2001– 2002). She also held a research fellowship at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (2007).Leading to publication of "Wild humours versus graphic inventions: the drawings of Romney & Gainsborough" in Transactions of the Romney Society, Vol.19, 2014
In 1996 she was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to drawing and teaching. She was awarded a Fellowship of the Royal College of Art (FRCA) 1997, an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Institute of British Architects (Hon. FRIBA)1998 and Honorary Doctorate in Design (Hon DDes) Kingston University, London, 2001. In 2019 she was appointed an Honorary Fellow of the Warburg Institute, London.
Deanna Petherbridge died at her London home on 8 January 2024, at the age of 84.
Selected publications "Passionate and Dispassionate Patronage", "Four Commissions in Context" & "Exaggerations of a Public Order" in Peter Townsend (ed.), Art within Reach, London: Thames & Hudson, 1984. Nineteen Eighty-Four: An exhibition, London: Camden Arts Centre, 1984. Art for Architecture: A Handbook on Commissioning, Deanna Petherbridge (ed.), Norwich & London: HM Stationery Office, 1987.Colin Amery, "Removing the mystique of commissioning" Review of Art for Architecture, Financial Times Monday 21 September 1987 The Primacy of Drawing: An Artist's View, London: South Bank Centre, 1991.Marina Vaizey, "Drawing up a New Artistic Agenda", review of The Primacy of Drawing, The Sunday Times, October 1991Andrew Graham-Dixon, "Lines of Thought", review of The Primacy of Drawing The Independent, 1 October 1991John McEwen, "Drawings, Dribblings and Marital Joys", review of The Primacy of Drawing, The Sunday Telegraph, 29 September 1991 The Quick and the Dead: Artists and Anatomy, Deanna Petherbridge & Ludmilla Jordanova, London: The Southbank Centre and Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.Adrian Searle "Corporal Entertainment" Review of The Quick and the Dead. The Guardian, 4 November 1997Tim Hilton "Hung, drawn and quartered" Review of The Quick and the Dead. Independent on Sunday, 9 November 1997William Packer "Lessons from Life" Review of The Quick and the Dead, Financial Times, 8/9 November 1997Martin Postle "The Cutting Edge" Review of The Quick and the Dead. Academy Magazine, Autumn, 1997Richard D. North "Taking a quick look at the dead" Review of The Quick and the Dead. The Independent, 26 November 1997Richard Cork "Visions that go more than skin deep". The Times, 11 November 1997Martin Kemp "Hidden Dimensions" Preview The Quick and the Dead, Tate Magazine, Winter, 1997David Musgrave "The Quick and the Dead", Art Monthly, No.212, Winter 1997-8 Corps à vif, Deanna Petherbridge, Claude Ritschard, Andrea Carlino, Geneva: Musée d’art et d’histoire, 1998. "Constructing the Language of Line", in John Flaxman 1755 – 1826: Master of the Purest Line, David Bindman (ed.), London: Sir John Soane Museum & Strang Collection, University College, 2003.