Tea in an artists’ colony! The Abbey Art Centre: encounter and exchange in post-war London
About the experience
Visit our pop-up Abbey Art Centre, sit down, drink tea, and share ideas. This mini-exhibition recreates the iconic 1940s post-war London artists’ colony, a place of encounter and exchange where Australians, Britons and émigré and refugee artists from Europe lived and worked alongside one another and a hotbed of experimental painting, sculpture and film.
Be surrounded by archival photographs, watch a short (1 minute 40 second) British Pathé film from 1952, and share a cup of tea.
Register your interest in attending any of the listed sessions.
What to expect:
From 11:00am until 2:00pm, tea will be served in the pop-up exhibition where guests can view a short film and photographs recreating the Abbey Art Centre.
Being Human 2026
This project was produced in collaboration with the 2026 Being Human Festival. Founded in the UK as the only national festival of the humanities, Being Human is now a global celebration dedicated to demonstrating the breadth, diversity and vitality of the humanities.
About the presenter
Dr Jane Eckett
Jane Eckett is lecturer in Art History and Art Curatorship at the University of Melbourne and a contributor to and editor of The Abbey Art Centre in postwar London, 1946–1956 (Routledge, 2026), co-edited with Ian McLean and Sheridan Palmer. As a 2026 Henry Moore Visiting Research Fellow, she is currently researching modernist sculpture, public art and transnational artistic exchange. She has recently guest edited a special issue of ARTMargins, ‘Decolonizing art colonies’ (14:3, 2025, https://artmargins.com/collectivity-communities-connectedness-decolonizing-art-colonies/) and a further forthcoming issue of Index Journal on the subject of Australian art colonies.
Further Information
Image: Peter Graham and Douglas Green at the Abbey, c. 1948–1949. Photographer unknown, courtesy Peter Graham estate.
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