Spilling the Tea: How stereotypes of modern female gossip emerged from Georgian tea parties
- Date
- 11 December 2024 - 1 March 2025
- Location
- Online exhibition
In this moment, imagine a view of “gossip”. What do you see? What do you feel?
If you are picturing a group of women chatting idly, and you instantly see this as petty or shallow, then this exhibition is here to help you think again.
Curated by four MA students from the University of Leeds, the exhibition uses the York Museums Trust collection to examine fine art and objects from tea parties. It aims to provoke the audience to reconsider biased representations of women’s communication over time.
Historically, tea parties have provided women with a space where they can talk freely and openly in a traditionally patriarchal society. However, over time preconceptions have gathered around afternoon tea, and towards other methods of female communication.
With nine works revolving around tea culture in the 1800s, this exhibition invites you to spill the “tea” of communication and to reclaim this language together.
Visit the exhibition
Spilling the Tea is part of a wider series of online exhibitions curated by Art Gallery and Museum Studies and Arts Management and Heritage MA students from the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, as part of an Interpretations course module.
Image
Tea Leaves by Alma Gogin Broadbridge (1948). Painting in British style, oil on canvas 86.4x55.5cm. Object no. YORAG : 172, York Museums Trust. Modified image. Source: York Museums Trust online collection. Copyright York Museums Trust (York Art Gallery).