Mr Ed Kettleborough

My PhD studies the artists who worked and studied together at London's Royal College of Art from 1958-1963, including Frank Bowling, Pauline Boty, Derek Boshier, Allen Jones, RB Kitaj, Patrick Caulfield, Peter Phillips, and David Hockney. Their work is typically classified as British Pop Art, but I argue that the term has obscured distinctive achievements and resulted in errors of periodisation.

Juxtaposing the simulacral postmodernism of Pop proper to the late modernism of my Royal College group, I position the work of these artists at a crucial juncture in 20th-century history. In turn, it becomes possible to trace their varied and sophisticated responses to the seismic developments of the mid-century, weaving a story which stretches from angst of the Cold War to the myths and realities of the Sexual Revolution. 

My methodology combines the social history of art with theoretically-driven observation. I am especially interested in psychoanalysis and its critical legacies for contemporary feminist, post-colonial, queer, and political theory. 

I hold a Masters in the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, and undergraduate degrees in Law and Economic History.

My research is co-supervised at the University of Exeter and funded by the SWW DTP consortium of the AHRC.