Focus on this artwork and explain the abstract.
The Expedition in Pursuit of Rare Meats is a mural by the English artist Rex Whistler (1905–1944), commissioned in 1926 and completed in 1927 at the Tate Gallery (now Tate Britain) in London. The mural was commissioned by the gallery's inaugural director, Charles Aitken, for the re-opening of its restaurant, where it forms the entire interior surround of what was the eponymously named eatery, "The Rex Whistler Restaurant".The work has been at the centre of controversy in recent years over the artist's depiction, in one scene, of a black child chained to and running behind a horse and cart and, in another, of Chinese people deemed by some to read as stereotypical as the figures are "caricatured". The entire painting, and its background story, can also be read as a satire on imperialism ("Rare Meats" being a culinary term for lightly cooked meat, while the painting goes to extremes to find food that is "rare" in the sense of being difficult to find). The room displaying the mural was closed as a restaurant in 2020.
Tate Tate Britain Charles Aitken Rex Whistler London