Alison Smith (curator)

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Alison Smith is chief curator at the National Portrait Gallery, London. [1]

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John Everett Millais British painter and illustrator (1829–1896)

Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, was an English painter and illustrator who was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was a child prodigy who, aged eleven, became the youngest student to enter the Royal Academy Schools. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded at his family home in London, at 83 Gower Street. Millais became the most famous exponent of the style, his painting Christ in the House of His Parents (1849–50) generating considerable controversy, and he produced a picture that could serve as the embodiment of the historical and naturalist focus of the group, Ophelia, in 1851–52.

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Group of English painters, poets and critics, founded in 1848

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, Frederic George Stephens and Thomas Woolner who formed a seven-member "Brotherhood" modelled in part on the Nazarene movement. The Brotherhood was only ever a loose association and their principles were shared by other artists of the time, including Ford Madox Brown, Arthur Hughes and Marie Spartali Stillman. Later followers of the principles of the Brotherhood included Edward Burne-Jones, William Morris and John William Waterhouse.

Thomas Seddon was an English landscape painter associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement, who painted colourful and highly detailed scenes of Brittany, Egypt, and Jerusalem.

Simeon Solomon British artist (1840 – 1905)

Simeon Solomon was a British painter associated with the Pre-Raphaelites who was noted for his depictions of Jewish life and same-sex desire. His career was cut short as a result of public scandal following his arrests and convictions for attempted sodomy in 1873 and 1874.

John Roddam Spencer Stanhope English artist (1829–1908)

John Roddam Spencer Stanhope was an English artist associated with Edward Burne-Jones and George Frederic Watts and often regarded as a second-wave pre-Raphaelite. His work is also studied within the context of Aestheticism and British Symbolism. As a painter, Stanhope worked in oil, watercolor, fresco, tempera, and mixed media. His subject matter was mythological, allegorical, biblical, and contemporary. Stanhope was born in Yorkshire, England, and died in Florence, Italy. He was the uncle and teacher of the painter Evelyn De Morgan.

George Price Boyce English painter

George Price Boyce was a British watercolour painter of landscapes and vernacular architecture in the Pre-Raphaelite style. He was a patron and friend of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

<i>A Huguenot</i>

A Huguenot, on St. Bartholomew's Day, Refusing to Shield Himself from Danger by Wearing the Roman Catholic Badge. (1851–52) is the full, exhibited title, of a painting by John Everett Millais, and was produced at the height of his Pre-Raphaelite period. It was accompanied, at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1852, with a long quote reading: "When the clock of the Palais de Justice shall sound upon the great bell, at daybreak, then each good Catholic must bind a strip of white linen round his arm, and place a fair white cross in his cap.—The order of the Duke of Guise." This long title is usually abbreviated to A Huguenot or A Huguenot, on St Bartholomew's Day.

William James Blacklock English landscape painter (1816–1858)

William James Blacklock was an English landscape painter, painting scenery in Cumbria, the Lake District and the Scottish Borders.

Frederick Cayley Robinson English painter

Frederick Cayley Robinson was an English artist, creating paintings and applied art including book illustrations and theatre set designs. Along with a number of other British artists, Cayley Robinson continued to paint striking Pre-Raphaelite and Victorian subjects well into the twentieth century despite this approach becoming deeply unfashionable. His work has been examined in a PhD thesis by Alice Eden and an exhibition Modern Pre-Raphaelite Visionaries at Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum.

Joanna Mary Boyce British artist

Joanna Mary Boyce was a British painter associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. She is also known by her married name as Mrs. H.T. Wells, or as Joanna Mary Wells. She produced multiple works with historical themes, as well as portraits and sketches, and authored art criticism responding to her contemporaries. She was the sister of Pre-Raphaelite watercolourist George Price Boyce.

<i>Paolo and Francesca da Rimini</i>

Paolo and Francesca da Rimini is a watercolour by British artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, painted in 1855 and now in Tate Britain.

<i>Pegwell Bay, Kent – a Recollection of October 5th 1858</i> 1860 painting by William Dyce

Pegwell Bay, Kent – a Recollection of October 5th 1858 is an oil-on-canvas painting by British artist William Dyce, depicting the landscape at Pegwell Bay, on the east coast of Kent. Considered a Pre-Raphaelite work, Dyce employs a mode of heightened realism and intricate detail to create a powerful landscape. It is considered to be Dyce's best painting, and is held by the Tate Gallery.

Victorian painting

Victorian painting refers to the distinctive styles of painting in the United Kingdom during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901). Victoria's early reign was characterised by rapid industrial development and social and political change, which made the United Kingdom one of the most powerful and advanced nations in the world. Painting in the early years of her reign was dominated by the Royal Academy of Arts and by the theories of its first president, Joshua Reynolds. Reynolds and the academy were strongly influenced by the Italian Renaissance painter Raphael, and believed that it was the role of an artist to make the subject of their work appear as noble and idealised as possible. This had proved a successful approach for artists in the pre-industrial period, where the main subjects of artistic commissions were portraits of the nobility and military and historical scenes. By the time of Victoria's accession to the throne this approach was coming to be seen as stale and outdated. The rise of the wealthy middle class had changed the art market, and a generation who had grown up in an industrial age believed in the importance of accuracy and attention to detail, and that the role of art was to reflect the world, not to idealise it.

Michael Hatt is professor of art history at the University of Warwick. He has served there since 2007, before which he was head of research at the Yale Center for British Art. He is the author with Charlotte Klonk of Art History: A Critical Introduction to Its Methods (2006), and editor with Morna O'Neill of The Edwardian Sense: Art, Design, and Performance in Britain, 1901–1910 (2010). In 2014, he co-curated Sculpture Victorious: Art in an Age of Invention, 1837–1901, an exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art that transferred to Tate Britain in 2015.

<i>Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, as She Goes to Bed</i> 1830 painting by William Etty

Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, as She Goes to Bed, occasionally formerly known as The Imprudence of Candaules, is a 45.1 by 55.9 cm oil painting on canvas by English artist William Etty, first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1830. It shows a scene from the Histories by Herodotus, in which Candaules, king of Lydia, invites his bodyguard Gyges to hide in the couple's bedroom and watch his wife Nyssia undress, to prove to him her beauty. Nyssia notices Gyges spying and challenges him to either accept his own execution or to kill Candaules as a punishment. Gyges chooses to kill Candaules and take his place as king. The painting shows the moment at which Nyssia, still unaware that she is being watched by anyone other than her husband, removes the last of her clothes.

<i>Youth on the Prow, and Pleasure at the Helm</i> 1832 painting by William Etty, inspired by a metaphor in Thomas Grays poem The Bard

Youth on the Prow, and Pleasure at the Helm is an oil painting on canvas by English artist William Etty, first exhibited in 1832. Etty had been planning the painting since 1818–19, and an early version was exhibited in 1822. The piece was inspired by a metaphor in Thomas Gray's poem The Bard in which the apparently bright start to the notorious misrule of Richard II of England was compared to a gilded ship whose occupants are unaware of an approaching storm. Etty chose to illustrate Gray's lines literally, depicting a golden boat filled with and surrounded by nude and near-nude figures.

<i>The Wrestlers</i> (Etty) c. 1840 painting of two wrestlers by William Etty

The Wrestlers is an oil painting on millboard by English artist William Etty, painted around 1840 and currently in the York Art Gallery, in York, England. It depicts a wrestling match between a black man and a white man, both glistening with sweat and under an intense light emphasising their curves and musculature. While little documentation of the painting exists prior to 1947, it is likely that it was painted over a period of three evenings at the life class of the Royal Academy.

<i>Musidora: The Bather At the Doubtful Breeze Alarmed</i> Four nearly identical oil paintings on canvas by English artist William Etty

Musidora: The Bather 'At the Doubtful Breeze Alarmed', also known as The Bather, is a name given to four nearly identical oil paintings on canvas by English artist William Etty. The paintings illustrate a scene from James Thomson's 1727 poem Summer in which a young man accidentally sees a young woman bathing naked, and is torn between his desire to look and his knowledge that he ought to look away. The scene was popular with English artists as it was one of the few legitimate pretexts to paint nudes at a time when the display and distribution of nude imagery was suppressed.

<i>Britomart Redeems Faire Amoret</i> Oil painting on canvas by William Etty

Britomart Redeems Faire Amoret is an oil painting on canvas by English artist William Etty, first exhibited in 1833 and now in Tate Britain. Intended to illustrate the virtues of honour and chastity, it depicts a scene from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene in which the female warrior Britomart slays the evil magician Busirane and frees his captive, the beautiful Amoret. In Spenser's original poem Amoret has been tortured and mutilated by the time of her rescue, but Etty disliked the depiction of violence and portrayed her as unharmed.

Martin Myrone is lead curator, British art to 1800 at the Tate Gallery.

References

  1. "Home". npg.org.uk.