Fine Arts Lecture Series – Leslie Primo: The Foreign Invention of British Art – postponed

Leslie Primos lecture has been rescheduled for the summer semester 2027.

 

The Foreign Invention of British Art

To truly understand British art is to recognize the pivotal contributions of the many foreign artists who have called Britain home. Traditional narratives have long obscured foreign influence, but this radical study challenges the notion of an exceptional or exclusive British culture, and in so doing rewrites the history of Renaissance and Enlightenment-era art.

Broadcaster and lecturer Leslie Primo expertly places art history in the wider political contexts of xenophobia and influence, addressing both foreign artists working in Britain and British-born artists affected by foreign cultures. From Hans Holbein to Artemisia Gentileschi, from William Hogarth to Angelica Kauffman, familiar masters and lesser-known creators are situated within the multiculturalism inherent to, yet commonly dismissed by, the art world at this time.

Weaving together artists’ experiences of both acclaim and adversity, The Foreign Invention of British Art not only demonstrates how immigration and diversification are so often the driving force behind creative innovation, but also reveals the true heritage behind some of the nation’s defining artworks.

 

Leslie Primo is an independent art historian author and broadcaster, graduating from Birkbeck, University College, London with an MA in Renaissance studies. He lectured at the National Gallery, London for 18 years, has appeared on the BBC speaking in Renaissance: The Blood and the Beauty, and on the Life of Michelangelo, and presented Turner: Light and Landscape. He was a contributor to the Oxford Companion Guide to Black British History, an art history consultant for the Getty publication, Balthazar: A Black African King in Medieval and Renaissance Art and was published by the Royal Academy Magazine for the Entangled Pasts exhibition, 2023-2024. Leslie’s book, ‘The Foreign Invention of British Art’ is published by Thames & Hudson in 2025.