Mary Fedden (1915-2012) painted many modern still lifes in which a few objects are arranged with perfect naturalness; they are a far cry from the extravagant artifice of many earlier, often academic, studies. All week on the Post we have looked at the table-top in art as something relatable and truly domestic in that it is the locus of changing arrangements and groupings which spring up spontaneously in homes. This is Mary Fedden's Stiil Life with Flowers in a Bottle (1968, Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery).

Simon Quadrat's (b.1946) still lifes marry several different stylistic elements to present very ordinary subjects in a extraordinary way. His paintings are more sparse than John Bratby's crowded 'everything but the kitchen sink' images, but there is a clear resemblance. The fact that a bright red bottle of tomato ketchup in a still life is no longer controversial, unlike Bratby's depictions of domestic objects, indicates  progress since it reflects real life. This is Still Life with Ketchup Bottle. 

John Bratby (1928-92), one of the so-called 1950s Kitchen Sink painters, specialised in images of ordinary, everyday realism. Still Life with Chip Frier (1954, Tate) contains a fascinating and readily recognisable accumulation of kitchen objects, a far cry from  traditional, artfully selected and arranged still life paintings. 

This week we have five domestic still lifes, the types of arrangements of objects which accumulate in homes by design and or by accident, and which are often unnoticed and unappreciated until an artist sees them with a clear eye. This is The Bedside Table (c1940-43, Brighton & Hove Museums) by Edward Le Bas (1904-66).

By the end of the C19 domestic dressmaking skills could be turned into a way of earning a living outside the home. Evangeline in The Homemaker is a gifted seamstress whose work is admired and whose ideas and advice are sought by the ladies in her church guild sewing group. When she is forced to take a position in a department store, she finds fulfilment and satisfaction in selling fabrics and trimmings, using her serious understanding of textiles to forge a career. The Dressmakers (1918) is by Louis Valtat (1869-1952) who often painted dressmakers, knitters, and stitchers in a fresh, colourful, contemporary style devoid of sentimentality.