To the Dance: Eight works by Nancy Spero 1926–2009

3 Jul-7 Aug 2026

Overview

‘I hope that my art is a continuum and that it moves through the years like a melody’

Nancy Spero placed the lived female experience at the heart of her work as both an artist and activist. This special display of eight works marks the centenary of her birth with pieces that exemplify the range, themes and ambition of her practice.

From her first solo exhibition at Galerie Breteau, Paris in 1962, Spero evolved a highly personal and expressive practice which explicitly addressed the vulnerability, resistance and power of the feminine across histories and cultures. Abandoning painting for collage and hand-printing, first in works appropriating the words of the poet Antonin Artaud (1896-1948), she developed her signature style of motifs printed onto hand-made paper scrolls in horizontal and vertical formats. Starting in 1975 Spero’s alphabet of hieroglyphs¬¬ on etched zinc and polymer plates expanded over the next four decades to over five hundred individual images. These figures, appropriated from literary, documentary, mythological and other sources, created a feminist visual language which she printed and collaged onto paper as well as interior and exterior surfaces. Rhythm, movement, colour and space are the structuring elements in her narratives that flow from the depths of despair to joyful transcendence and freedom from restraint.

The presentation of eight works features a selection of the artist’s works on paper and includes rarely seen pieces from a private London collection.