Sacha Craddock on Rosa Lee

Sacha Craddock, curator, critic and former Chair of the Board of Bloomberg New Contemporaries, talks about the work of artist and friend Rosa Lee. Through her disruptive work, Rosa Lee intended to reclaim the position of women within painting. Inspired by the American Pattern & Decoration movement, in the 1980s-90s she created a new type of abstraction that made a clever use of traditionally feminine decorative elements – like patterning, beading and collage – to upend the male-dominated abstract art conventions.

The video was shot on the occasion of Haptic Vision, an exhibition held between 20 August – 1 October 2022 at Richard Saltoun’s London gallery that put into focus Lee’s massive influence on the UK’s abstract and feminist art of the 1980s & 90s.

Richard Saltoun Gallery is a contemporary art gallery with locations in London and Rome. It specialises in feminist, conceptual and performance artists from the 1960s onwards, with a strong focus on rediscovering the work of important yet under-recognised artists