Towards a theory of petromodernism: an analysis of Shell-Mex and BP limited’s commissioning of the British avant-garde in the 1930s

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of protests against the funding of cultural establishments by oil corporations, including landmark campaigns such as Liberate Tate. Such interventions with modern and contemporary art museums are underpinned by the assumption that divestment from fossil fuel industries would effectively disentangle the relationship between culture and oil. Instead, my paper argues that a more rigorous analysis of the influence of petroleum on artworks themselves is necessary to substantively challenge the role that art has played—and continues to play—in promoting the oil industry. To support this stance, I focus on Shell-Mex and BP Limited’s advertisements from the 1930s, which commissioned leading figures of the British avant-garde, as a case study to reinterpret the formal vocabulary of modernism and its enduring influence on contemporary art as stemming from the influence of petroleum.