A dazzling, boldly original work that tells the powerful and passionate stories of a group of extraordinary women as glimpsed through their still life paintings

Shortlisted for the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize 2022

Longlisted for the William M B Berger Prize for British Art History 2022

Guardian Art Book of the Year 2021

A dazzling, boldly original work that tells the powerful and passionate stories of a group of extraordinary women as glimpsed through their still life paintings

What is contained in a still life – and what falls out of the frame? For women artists in the early twentieth century, such as Dora Carrington, Vanessa Bell and Gwen John, this art form was a conduit for their lives, their rebellions, their quietly subversive loves for men and women.

But for every artist whom we remember, there are those whose work is almost forgotten. In This Dark Country, Rebecca Birrell conducts a dazzling fusion of group biography and art criticism, exploring, from the celebrated to the overlooked, the structures of intimacy that make – and dismantle – our worlds.

'A brilliant book ... A truly radical aesthetics fit for the twenty-first century at last!' - Thérèse Oulton

'[A] wonderful book. I am impressed and fascinated. It is beautifully written' - Celia Paul

"Blending flights of poetic rhapsody with more traditional critical language, This Dark Country is as seductive as it is scholarly ... Riveting" - Financial Times

"[A] beautiful, bold new book … explores the desires and ambitions of women artists, moving beyond the frame to reflect lives that rarely fit convention" - Elephant

"Birrell’s blend of art criticism and biography works best when it is tethered to real-world calculation. She is particularly good at teasing out the stubborn material facts that underpin the most serene of still lifes" - Guardian

"Rebecca Birrell urges us to ask new questions about gender and genre, domesticity and work … At its heart is the challenge of understanding the lives and works of women whose desires and ambitions often demanded secrecy, evasion and ambiguity" - Literary Review

"This is a bold, unusual book, filled with archival research, exuberant ideas and a determination to counter misogyny" - RA Magazine