Drawing for ‘Butcher’s Shop I’ 1955

Editor: This is Peter Coker's 'Drawing for Butcher's Shop I' from the Tate Collection. It's a fairly monochromatic sketch, and I find its rough, dark lines quite unsettling. What do you make of it? Curator: Coker's butcher shop drawings, especially in postwar Britain, speak volumes. The visceral depiction of meat, the animal body, becomes a site to confront anxieties about mortality and consumption. Consider the social climate – rationing, anxieties about food security. Does this change your view? Editor: It does. Seeing it as a reflection of anxieties rather than just an image of meat makes the drawing more powerful. Thanks! Curator: Indeed. Art can become a space to address trauma, and make visible what society prefers to keep hidden.