This week on the Post the subject is Dod Procter (1890-1972) who, in the late 1920s, was perhaps the best-known artist in Britain (more on tomorrow's Post). She was born in Hampstead and later moved to Newlyn with her family.  She studied there with Stanhope Forbes and then in Paris, after which she embraced artistic life in Newlyn, the place and group of painters with which she is most closely associated. This is her assured Self Portrait (not dated, Penlee House), the image of a modern young woman, in the mould of Delia in The New House. 

This is the Bernat Klein Studio (Peter Womersley, 1972) in the Scottish Borders. Although it now has a rare Category A listing, it is now in a poor state of repair and will cost the new owners £3 million to sort out. But the good news is that was rescued in 2025 with the support of the C20 Society. It forms an important link with the nearby modern, open-plan house (1957, also Category A) built for Bernat Klein and his family. This is the subject of The See-Through House (2020) by his daughter Shelley Klein, although as a teenager she wanted doors she could slam.

Today, even recent architecture is under threat. It has taken nine years of campaigning by the C20 Society to get Southwark Tube Station (built 1994-99) Grade II listed. It was one of the six new stations on the Jubilee Line Extension, and the C20 Society says, "the joyful experience of travelling from street to platform is a carefully choreographed delight. From the drum shaped entrance that recalls Charles Holden’s classic 1930s Arnos Grove tube station, to the subterranean skylit hall with artist Alexander Beleschenko’s dramatic geometric blue glass wall, this is transport infrastructure elevated to the sublime".

The Art School Project is in the process of documenting England's art schools - past, present, and demolished - with a series of regional exhibitions. As the writers say, "In the 1960s there were over 150 art schools in England alone and the idea of ‘art school’ was commonplace enough for the term to signify not just a place of study but an almost subcultural set of attitudes and practices". Wolverhampton School of Art opened in 1970 and has been under threat, but with the help of the C20 Society is has recently been saved by listing. As this blog post makes clear, it is an exceptional building which is very much in use by today's art students.

The Twentieth Century Society has a range of campaigns which are not solely aimed at saving buildings. Last month it was announced that it had helped to rescue a frieze of fifteen terracotta mural panels from the Broad Quay House office building (1982) in Bristol, which is set to be redeveloped. These were created by husband-and-wife artists Philippa Threlfall (b.1939) and Kennedy Collings (1933-2002) and depict key moments and artefacts from eight hundred years of Bristol’s history. This panel represents the 19C and 20C; the corn sheaf was the original symbol of the Co-Operative Society set up in Bristol in 1884.

Saving modern architecture is the theme on the Post this week. After thirty-five years of campaigning, the Twentieth Century Society announced last week that the Southbank Centre has finally been Grade II listed. Like it or loathe it, and it has been called "Britain's ugliest building", the complex is described as a "visionary combination of performance spaces and art gallery... a post-war architectural masterpiece...[and]...perhaps the most totemic – and controversial – example of British Brutalism". With its stunning interior, the Hayward Gallery (above in 1968) reopens this week with a new exhibition of work by Chiharu Shiota.