The baronial Two Temple Place certainly doesn't evoke the words 'working class' but its latest exhibition — Lives Less Ordinary: Working-Class Britain Re-seen — shines a light on 150 pieces by working-class artists. Curator Samantha Manton chooses five favourites for Londonist.
Bert Hardy (Gorbals Boys, 1948)

This is the earliest piece in the show, and it exemplifies why this exhibition feels so vital. The now-iconic photograph was Hardy's favourite from a series he produced in 1948 for Picture Post. The magazine commissioned images to accompany a feature on life in Glasgow's tenements, yet the editors chose not to include this image in the final spread as it didn't fit their imagined view about what life was like for working-class communities. The joyful optimism and empathetic focus of Hardy's image on the boy's camaraderie was rejected in favour of more typical depictions of working-class life that tend to exclusively show hardship and struggle. By including this photograph in the exhibition, I wanted to highlight the significance of defying stereotypes and of bringing nuance to representations of the marginalised.
Jasleen Kaur (He Walked Like He Owned Himself, 2018)

Kaur's sculptural work speaks to her upbringing as part of a Sikh community in a working-class neighbourhood of Glasgow. Influenced by time she spent in her father's hardware shop as a child, she likens herself to a cobbler, playfully combining materials and everyday objects to reflect the hybrid and layered nature of her cultural identity. The exhibition brings together many artists whose work contests the often-imposed notion of cultural identity being a fixed and singular thing.
Jo Spence (Photo Therapy: Double Shift / Double Crossed / Double Bind, 1984)

Spence was persistently frustrated by the way in which working-class people were routinely perceived as passive victims rather than active agents in their own lives. She believed that photography had an empowering capacity to address such narrow views. Here, she is enacting her mother in her roles as factory worker and homemaker. My deeply personal affiliation with Spence's experiences of class-based shame and defiance has been a major driving force behind this project.
Connor Coulston (I NEED TO SPICE UP MY LIFE, 2022)

Coulston makes confessional ceramic artworks which draw upon his childhood memories, queer desires and class identity. Influenced by the kitsch ornaments that adorned his nan's fireplace, they are reflective of his fierce imagination and self-deprecating sense of humour. This piece channels the intensity of his childhood fandom, and was made in an attempt to relieve the humdrum of his day-to-day life at the time.
Eric Tucker (Red Head and Two Bottles of Beer, date unknown)

Many artists featured in the exhibition were self-taught as they didn’t have the means to attend art school. Despite drawing on deep-rooted creative interests and art-historical references, their work was often dismissed as 'naïve', with their deliberate artistic choices overlooked due to their lack of formal training and 'ordinary' subject matter. Tucker, a highly prolific painter despite his various day jobs, found endless inspiration in working-class life and culture, but only gained public recognition after his death.
Lives Less Ordinary: Working-Class Britain Re-seen, Two Temple Place, 25 January-20 April 2025, free