Art has a class problem. Historically, the representation of working-class life has been filtered through the reductive and distorting lens of the middle-class gaze. Working-class subjects have been under- or misrepresented, stereotyped or sensationalised. Working-class artists have been misinterpreted, pigeonholed, or overlooked altogether. And, for anyone looking for a career in the art world, a working-class background can present a significant barrier to entry.1 2

Lives Less Ordinary: Working-Class Britain Re-seen, a major new exhibition at Two Temple Place, seeks to explore and address these inequities head-on. By celebrating and reevaluating working-class representation in postwar Britain the show sets out to overturn long-standing misrepresentations, enrich limited and limiting narratives, and trigger fresh thinking about the lives of working-class people, showcasing more authentic and nuanced depictions of working-class experiences and identities.

Conceived and curated by Samantha Manton, the exhibition includes more than 150 art works of painting, photography, film, sculpture and ceramics, exclusively from working-class artists and those from working-class backgrounds. In keeping with Two Temple Place’s role as a major London platform for the UK’s regional collections, the exhibition brings together a wide-ranging body of work from museums and galleries, archives, artists’ estates and contemporary artists up and down the country.
Reframing narratives, challenging stereotypes, exploring identities
Lives Less Ordinary provides a platform to champion contemporary artists from working-class backgrounds, while also encouraging audiences to reappraise the work of underappreciated 20th-century figures such as Beryl Cook and Monica Ross, and discover works, perhaps for the first time, by little-known artists including Sandra George and Eric Tucker.

Artists like Roman Manfredi, Joanne Coates and Mahtab Hussain make visible overlooked working-class communities, defiantly challenging reductive stereotypes, while Hannah Starkey, Ken Grant, Masterji and others draw attention to quiet, interior lives. Artworks by the likes of Rene Matic, Chila Burman, Corbin Shaw demonstrate the plurality of working-class identity, illuminating how class intersects with gender, race, religion, sexuality and migrant status. Early work by this year’s Turner Prize nominee Jasleen Kaur features and taking centre stage in Two Temple’s Place’s atrium will be an inaugural London-based presentation of Matthew Arthur Williams’ two-channel film and sound installation Soon Come.

Acts of censorship and erasure are brought to the fore in works by photographers Jo Spence and Sirkka Lisa-Konttien – and exemplified by Bert Hardy’s famous 1948 photograph Gorbals Boys, an image deemed too hopeful to suit the bleak narrative of Picture Post, for which it was taken.
“My aim has been to feature artists and photographers whose work challenges reductive, negative and one-dimensional representations of working-class lives and communities; those that offer positive, celebratory imagery, but also those that reflect the complexity, nuance and depth. Brought together, they challenge a canon which typically upholds the notion of working-class life as depressing, homogenous, undeserving of attention, only about poverty, crisis and deprivation. The exhibition is a call to action for museums and galleries to ensure that more authentic expressions of working-class life are present on their walls and in their collections.”
– Samantha Manton, curator, Lives Less Ordinary
The result is a complex, nuanced and compelling examination of what Richard Hoggart called the ‘sprawling and multitudinous and infinitely detailed character of working-class life’ in all its pride, playfulness, humour and hope.
An exhibition in dialogue with its setting
Lives Less Ordinary unfolds across Two Temple Place in a thematic, non-chronological journey; the works in dialogue with each other and in juxtaposition with the conspicuous wealth of their surroundings. Originally built to house the offices of real-estate heir William Waldorf Astor, scion of one of the richest dynasties in US history, Two Temple Place has a heritage that stands in stark opposition to the realities of working-class life, lending an uneasy and intriguing tension to the exhibition.

The opulence of the setting is more complicated than it might first appear. The interiors and exteriors of Two Temple Place may be ornate and extravagant, but they too are the work of working-class artists and artisans, who contribute their skill, material knowledge and passion to the friezes, flourishes and intricate detailing that define the building. Their work, largely unsigned and anonymous, adds a further dimension to the story of working-class art and creativity.
“Our exhibitions tell stories that are not being told elsewhere. As well as showcasing collections from outside London, we also share stories of people and communities who are underrepresented within the arts and arts organisations. So many of the objects in collections today are representative of middle- and upper-class lives, and rarely those of people from working-class backgrounds. Lives Less Ordinary strives to redress that balance, challenging both the elitism of the arts sector and the exuberant opulence of the neo-Gothic building itself.”
– Rebecca Hone, Head of Culture & Community, Two Temple Place
Kinship, community, connection and identity
The exhibition opens with a gallery exploring family: the first half focusing on the home as a site of care and kinship – including the work of the male artists of the Kitchen Sink realism movement in the ’50s and working-class female artists of Feministo in the ’70s; the second half showcasing artists such as Kelly O’Brien and Hetain Patel, who reflect family histories and intergenerational legacies of class in their work.

The exhibition goes on to include a display of photography in which artists explore and give visibility to diverse communities, from working-class Muslim men in Birmingham (Mahtab Hussain) to butches and studs from working-class backgrounds (Roman Manfredi).

In Two Temple Place’s Library, further artists express their plural identities, demonstrating the intersections between class and other identity markers such as race, gender and sexuality. The main gallery gives space to artists exploring their connections with place, whether rural, urban or suburban. This progresses into a focus on community and social spaces beyond the home, including sites of leisure and pleasure from pubs, clubs and cafés to the seaside and the stadium.

Lives Less Ordinary concludes with a selection of Jo Spence’s self-portraits produced during a ‘photo-therapy’ session on the subject of class in the late 80s raising questions about the objectifying gaze, the distinction between object and subject in art – and who gets to make it.
Workshops and events
The free exhibition will be accompanied by a wide-ranging calendar of events for adults and children, including creative workshops, artist talks, performances and live music sessions, to help extend the conversation beyond the gallery walls. Throughout Lives Less Ordinary, Two Temple Place will continue working with state primary schools from around London, offering free workshops in literacy and creative activities designed to complement the exhibition’s themes and content.

In addition, Two Temple Place is inviting participation from 10–15 individuals, with an interest in art or photography and who identify as working class or coming from a working-class background, to take part in a paid participation programme comprising a series of fortnightly dinner workshops exploring working-class lives and people within art. The outcomes of these discussions and creative activities with this group will be presented during the final month of the exhibition.

Lives Less Ordinary: Working-Class Britain Re-seen is free to visit at Two Temple Place, London WC2R 3BD, from 25 January to 20 April 2025.