Activism Through Art: Edith Tudor Hart in Britain

Sociologist Larry Ray, one of the contributors to the anthology Poverty for Sale: Edith Tudor Hart in Britain, recently published by MuseumsEtc, will give a talk about the life and work of photographer and committed communist Edith Tudor Hart. Born in Vienna, she settled in the UK in 1933 and went on to produce a powerful body of images that bear witness to her profound sympathy for the young, the underprivileged, the disabled and displaced.

This major new publication, described by one reviewer as “a reminder of the power of activism through art” and by another as an overdue “documentation of her important photographic contribution and her often tragic life”, provides a comprehensive overview of the largely-unknown work of Edith Tudor Hart (1908-1973) during her forty years living in Britain. It is extensively illustrated with over 200 images (many published for the first time), original letters and documents held in leading international museums, galleries and private collections – including pages from her recently discovered personal scrapbook.

Larry Ray is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent. He has published and taught extensively on social theory and philosophy, postcommunism, the politics of Holocaust memory in Poland, the sociology of violence, and photographic aesthetics. His book Violence & Society was first published in 2011; the second revised edition appeared in 2018 and includes an analysis of violence and the visual. His article on ‘Social theory, photography and the visual aesthetic’ published in Cultural Sociology in 2020 won the annual SAGE Prize for Innovation/Excellence. He has a long-standing interest in the photography of Edith Tudor Hart, and his essay ‘Social Realism and Edith Tudor Hart’ is included in Poverty for Sale.

To book, click here.