The Essay

Tom Shakespeare challenges stereotypical ideas about creativity and disability, by celebrating a selection of disabled artists, discussing how their impairments fuelled their genius and demonstrating the variety and achievement of disabled lives.What comes to mind when you think of disability? Perhaps the child born with a genetic condition, or the person in the prime of life who becomes spinal-cord injured. But only 5% of children and only 10% of working age adults are disabled. The majority of people become disabled in later life, and artists are no exception. In this programme,Tom Shakespeare discusses how the lives of three artists - the painters Goya, Klee and Matisse - show how restriction created by ageing or disease can open up new creative possibilities.