Largely undocumented in the published accounts of cultural policy history in the United Kingdom, the Arts Enquiry was a privately funded survey of the arts in war-time England. It was launched in 1941 as an initiative of the Arts Department at Dartington Hall and funded by the trustees of Dartington Hall, who spent £19,000 on the study over its 6-year history. The Enquiry brought together artists, intellectuals, philanthropists, and arts professionals in specialist committees to examine the visual arts, music, drama, and documentary film. Three book-length studies were published: The Visual Arts in 1946 (183 pages), The Factual Film in 1947 (260 pages), and Music in 1949 (224 pages). This article examines the history of the Arts Enquiry, its entanglement in the cultural politics of the period, and what it reveals about policy formation in the United Kingdom, as well as the historiography of cultural policy.
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)