newsletter - issue 40

The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

NEWSLETTERYale University September 2014 Issue 40

The Paul Mellon Centre Staff Director of Studies: Mark Hallett Deputy Director of Studies: Martin Postle Assistant Director for Finance and Administration: Sarah Ruddick Assistant Director for Research: Sarah V icto r ia Turner Events Co-ordinator and Director’s Assistant: Ella Fleming Yale-in-London Coordinator: Nermin A bdulla Librarian: Emma FloydArchivist and Records Manager: Charlotte Brunskill Archives and Library Assistant: Jenny Hill Archives and Library Assistant:Frankie Drummond Picture Research and Online Cataloguing: Maisoon Rehani Administrative Assistant: Lyndsey Gherardi Fellowships and Grants Manager: Mary Peskett Smith Editor Research Projects: G uilland Suther land Senior Research Fellows, Special Projects: Hugh Belsey, Elizabeth Einberg, A lex Kidson, Eric Shanes, Paul Spencer-Longhurst Advisory Council: Iwona Blazwick, A lixe Bovey, David Peters C orbett, Penelope C urtis, A nthony Geraghty, Michael Hatt, Nigel Llewellyn, Richard Marks, A ndrew Moore, A ndrew Saint, Shearer West, A lison Yarrington Company Registered in England 983028 Registered Charity 313838

16 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3JA Tel: 020 7580 0311 Fax: 020 7636 6730 www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk

Welcome page of Richard Wilson Online (design by Peter Thomas) with detail from AntonRaphael Mengs, Richard Wilson, (1752, Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, Cardiff)

Richard Wilson Online aims to update and assimilate thecanonical catalogue raisonné of Wilson’s paintings byProfessor W.G. Constable (1953) and Sir Brinsley Ford’sThe Drawings of Richard Wilson (1951). There is also asection devoted to the prints after Wilson’s compositions,which were a crucial instrument in their public reception.Over the last six decades pictures have changed ownershipwhile new works have emerged, especially in the light ofthe ground-breaking exhibition, Richard Wilson: TheLandscape of Reaction, held in 1982-83. As many aspossible of these works have been relocated, re-assessedand re-photographed. The range of institutionscontaining Wilsons in places as diverse as Australia, Japan and South Africa is documented by an interactiveworld map of works in public collections. Wilsonconnoisseurship – notoriously tricky – has been simplified

and enriched by the linking of related works and theinclusion of only those deemed authentic. Exhibitionsdedicated to or containing works by Wilson have beenrecorded, allowing the user extensive access to the artist’sdisplay history. Further links unite each picture withrelated biographies, publications and documents. There isalso a direct link to the Centre’s W.G. Constable Archive. Richard Wilson Online is funded by the Paul MellonCentre and the compiler is Dr Paul Spencer-Longhurst,Senior Research Fellow, with the collaboration ofProfessor David Solkin, curator of the 1982-83 exhibition,and of Kate Lowry, formerly Chief Conservator ofAmgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, and withthe assistance of Maisoon Rehani and Peter Thomas. Toaccess Richard Wilson Online from 23 October pleasevisit: http://richardwilsononline.ac.uk/

RICHARD WILSON ONLINEThe new digital catalogue raisonnéof the works of Richard Wilsongoes live on Thursday 23 October.

Richard Wilson Online is the outcomeof intensive research to re-establish theartist’s true status and redefine hisoutput in celebration of thetercentenary of his birth.

Richard Wilson Online is launched asa work-in-progress and provides anup-to-date and freely accessible recordof Wilson’s autograph paintings andworks on paper.

It complements and extends publicinterest in and academic focus on hisachievements created by the exhibition,Richard Wilson and the Transformation ofEuropean Landscape Painting, open atAmgueddfa Cymru – National MuseumWales until 26 October.

THE PAUL MELLON CENTRE ACADEMIC ACTIVITIES

RESEARCH LUNCHES

Fridays, 12.30–2.30 PM

3rd October Rosie Razzle (Curator of Prints and Drawings, TheRoyal Collection)Copying Gainsborough: Paul Sandby and the refashioning ofhis artistic identity

17th OctoberSylvie Simonds (Research Associate, University of York)Dialectics of Liberation: Kinetic Theatre and Strategies ofResistance

14th NovemberChloe Kroeter (Curatorial Fellow, Watts Gallery)‘To Illustrate the Beautiful and Noble’: The Drawings ofGeorge Frederic Watts

28th NovemberEleonora Pistis (Scott Opler Research Fellow inArchitectural History, Worcester College, Oxford)Nicholas Hawksmoor, Oxford, and 18th-Century Europe

Research Programme Autumn 2014RESEARCH SEMINARS

Wednesdays, 6.00–8.00 PM

MODERN ART IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY BRITAIN

1st OctoberLynda Nead (Pevsner Professor of History of Art,Birkbeck, University of London)Bombsites: Urban Landscapes and Press Photography inBritain c.1945–55

8th OctoberAnne Wagner (Professor Emerita, Modern andContemporary Art, UC Berkeley)Lowry and the Local

15th OctoberLisa Tickner (Visiting Professor, The CourtauldInstitute of Art)Antonioni’s ‘Blow-Up’

Details about the Research Seminars and ResearchLunches can also be found on the Centre’s website,www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk

In order to create an improved environment andincreased space for our library and archives, our eventsprogramme, our Yale-in-London students and our staff,we are in the process of negotiating with Bedford Estatesto obtain the lease at number 15 Bedford Square, adjacentto our present premises at number 16. Our plan is to connect the two buildings, improving

the interior of number 15 in order to bring it up to thestandard of our present building, while respecting thehistoric and aesthetic importance of both premises. As a result of the expansion, and the related

construction and refurbishment, it is envisaged that the

INVENTION AND IMAGINATIONIN BRITISH ART AND ARCHITECTURE, 600-1500

This conference will explore the ways in which artistsand patrons in Britain devised and introduced new ordistinctive imagery, styles and techniques, as well asnovel approaches to bringing different media together. Itis concerned with the mechanisms of innovation, withinventive and imaginative processes, and with therelations between conventions and individual expression.The conversation will therefore also address the very

Paul Mellon Centre – including the Public Study Roomand associated enquiry service – will be closed to thepublic from Friday 24 October 2014 to the end ofJune 2015. The Centre’s other departments willcontinue to work as usual and respond to enquiries byemail. Our scheduled events programme for autumn 2014will not be affected. For further details please refer to thePaul Mellon Centre website.

This is an exciting phase in the life of the Centre and welook forward to welcoming visitors to our enhanced andexpanded space next summer.

notions of sameness and difference in medieval art andarchitecture, and how these may be evaluated andexplained historically.

Tickets are now available via Eventbrite. Please visit our website for further details and thefull programme for this conference:www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk

Paul Mellon Centre Expansion Project

Conference at the British Museum, 30 Oct .–1 Nov.

ACADEMIC ACTIVITIES THE PAUL MELLON CENTRE

Past Research Events (May to August 2014)THE EDUCATED EYE? CONNOISSEURSHIP NOW

On 2 May 2014, the Centre hosted a major conference onthe topic of The Educated Eye? Connoisseurship Now.Keynote talks were given by Stephen Deuchar, Directorof The Art Fund, and Elizabeth Prettejohn, Head of theDepartment of History of Art at the University of York.Bringing together academics, curators, dealers, auctionhouse professionals, conservators and students, the eventgenerated lively discussion about the role and reputationof connoisseurship today; debate took place both at theCentre itself and via the online forum provided by the livestream of the conference over the internet. The debatehas continued with commentary on the conference in artjournals, editorials and via social media, no doubtfacilitated by the ability to watch the event again at http://www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/348/

WORKSHOPS

The Centre regularly hosts research and curatorial-planning workshops for small groups of researchers tocome together to exchange ideas on particular topics inthe history of British art and architecture. These areoften exploratory events organised with a view todeveloping conference projects or exhibition proposals.In recent months, we have hosted a number of suchworkshops. On May 16th, in collaboration with theWhitechapel Gallery and Film London, we held a ‘thinktank’ on the topic of artists’ moving-image work inBritain 1990-2014. This was the first step towards alarger conference and publication. The Centre is alsoworking with curators from Tate Britain on a series ofevents focusing on the exhibition cultures of post-warBritain. A workshop on this topic on June 13th helped usshape plans for a larger conference in 2015, details of Print Summer Seminar, July 2014

which will be announced on our website and in futurenewsletters. On 16 July, Cicely Robinson and ChristopherGaribaldi presented their plans for the new display ofBritish sporting art at the National Horseracing Museumin Newmarket, with responses from art historians andcurators, including colleagues at the Yale Center forBritish Art.

PRINT SUMMER SEMINAR

A week-long graduate summer seminar was held at theCentre from 21 to 25 July on the topic of ‘British PrintCulture in a Transnational Context, 1700-2014’. Thiswas led by Professor Stephen Bann, Gillian Forrester,Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Yale Center forBritish Art, and Sarah Turner, the Centre’s AssistantDirector for Research. Taking the seminar were twelvePhD students selected from institutions in Europe, theUnited States and Australia. Intensive seminars, trips tostudy rooms at the British Museum and Tate Britain, andvisits to Paragon Press and the studio of Royal AcademyPresident Christopher Le Brun, made for a packed andhugely enjoyable week of scholarly exchange.

British Art Through its Exhibition Histories,1760 to Now

This session will explore the varied exhibition cultures ofBritish art from 1760 – the year that saw the first annualexhibition of contemporary British painting, sculptureand printmaking – through to today. It will not seek to offer a chronological history of

exhibitions but rather a series of critical propositions thattake exhibitions and exhibition culture as a lens throughwhich to examine the history, presentation, marketingand reception of British art, both in the UK andinternationally.

Association of Art Historians ConferenceUniversity of East Anglia, 9 – 11 April 2015

Session convenors: Mark Hallett and Sarah VictoriaTurner (The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in BritishArt, London) and Martina Droth (Yale Center for BritishArt, New Haven)

Deadline for paper proposals: 10 November 2014For all the details about how to apply, paper proposalguidelines and more information about the conference,see the AAH’s conference website: http://www.aah.org.uk/annual-conference/sessions2015

Call for Papers

W.G. CONSTABLE ARCHIVE

Following the launch of the Wilson online catalogue, theCentre now hosts over 60 years of scholarship on theartist. The Archive collections include the papers of W.G.Constable (1887-1976) whose Richard Wilson (1953) wasthe first catalogue raisonné of the artist. The majority ofthe Constable Archive relates to this work and includesresearch notes, correspondence and photographs, manyof which have been annotated.

Details of and a link to this fully catalogued collection areavailable at: http://www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/263/

DENNIS SHARP ARCHIVE

CATALOGUE DESCRIPTIONS NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE

The Centre is delighted to announce that work on theDennis Sharp Archive, noted in Newsletter 38, iscomplete and the resulting catalogue descriptions arenow available online. Alongside detailed informationabout the contents of the archive, especially Sharp’s workon the iconic firm of Connell, Ward & Lucas, thecatalogue also contains digital images of over 100 keyitems from the collection. It is full text searchable andavailable to researchers on the Centre’s website:http://www.calmview2.eu/paulmelloncentre/calmview/imagegallery.aspx. A lecture celebrating the Centre’s acquisition of the

archive, the gift of Sharp’s widow Yasmin Shariff, washeld in May. This was attended by many notableindividuals from the field of architecture and featuredfascinating talks by Yasmin Shariff and Sally Rendel. It

museums, sale rooms and other institutions for thepurpose of studying British works of art on paper. The details and application form for the Andrew Wyld

Research Support Grants are on the website atwww.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/179/ and the closing datefor applications is 15 September 2014.

THE WILHELMINA BARNS-GRAHAM RESEARCH SUPPORTGRANT

Since 2009 the Paul Mellon Centre has administered aResearch Support Grant on behalf of the Barns-GrahamCharitable Trust. The Research Support Grant is anannual award of £2,000 to assist scholars andresearchers in the field of 20th-century British painting.We welcome applications for this award each Autumn. The details and application form for the Wilhelmina

Barns-Graham Research Support Grant are on thewebsite at www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/179/ and theclosing date for applications is 15 September 2014.

ANNOUNCEMENT OF A NEW AWARDTHE ANDREW WYLD RESEARCH SUPPORT GRANT

The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art isdelighted to announce that it will administer a newcategory of award from September 2014 on behalf of theAndrew Wyld Fund.Andrew Wyld was a well-known and much respected

London art dealer, specialising in 18th- and 19th-centuryBritish watercolours. After his death in 2011, a group offriends and family decided to set up a fund in his memory;its aim is to enable students to do exactly as he did: tolook at, and judge, works of art on paper for themselves.Andrew Wyld Research Support Grants of up to

£2,000 will be offered annually to graduate, doctoral andundergraduate students (undertaking dissertationresearch) working in the field of British works of art onpaper of the 18th and 19th centuries.Grants may be used towards the expenses incurred in

visiting prints and drawings collections, galleries,

THE PAUL MELLON CENTRE COLLECTIONS

Collections at the Paul Mellon Centre

Grant Awards

was particularly pleasing to welcome members of thefamilies of Amyas Connell and Colin Lucas. Followingthe success of this event, interest in the archive has beenhigh. Items from the collection have been consulted by awide range of individuals and in July it was the subject ofa Courtauld summer school session, organised by AlanPowers in conjunction with Paul Mellon Centrecollections staff.Further information on the Dennis Sharp Archive can

also be found in ‘Collections: Spotlight’, a new specialfeatures section of the Centre’s website, which showcasesexciting projects from the Collections area and highlightskey themes illustrated by the material.Work on the Dennis Sharp Archive was undertaken by

Liz Moody, an experienced archive cataloguer, who hascome to the Centre from the Wallace Collection.The Dennis Sharp Archive is open to all interested

researchers. Please contact the collections staff to makean appointment: [email protected].

FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS THE PAUL MELLON CENTRE

John Singer Sargent. Figures andLandscapes 1908–1913 The Complete Paintings, Vol.VIIIRichard Ormond & Elaine Kilmurray

After John Singer Sargent (1856– 1925) determined to curtail hisinternationally successful portraitpractice, he had more freedom topaint where and what he wanted.This volume transports us to theartist’s most beloved locations, oftenwith his friends and family. In thepaintings featured here, Sargentreturned to subjects that had alwaysheld deep personal connections andartistic challenges: mountains,streams, rocks and torrents, figuresin repose, architecture and gardens,boats and shipping. He had knownand painted the Alps since childhood,and his new Alpine studies make upthe greatest number of works in thisbook. Beautifully designed, thisvolume represents a continuation inorganisation and presentation and inthe high standards that mark theseries, and documents 299 works inoil and watercolour. Each painting iscatalogued with full provenance,exhibition history and bibliography.

Richard Ormond is a Sargent scholarand an independent art historian. Hewas formerly Deputy Director of theNational Portrait Gallery, London,and Director of the NationalMaritime Museum, Greenwich. Elaine Kilmurray is a co-author andthe research director of the JohnSinger Sargent catalogue raisonné.

August 424 pp. 305x248mm. 420 colour + 58 b/w illus.HB ISBN 978-0-300-17736-7 £50.00*

Art and Architecture of IrelandComplete 5-Volume Set

Andrew Carpenter, General Editor

A sweeping, gloriously illustratedcelebration of 1,600 years of Irish artand architecture. In five handsome,deeply researched volumes, Art andArchitecture of Ireland provides anauthoritative and fully illustratedaccount of the art and architecture ofIreland from the early Middle Ages tothe end of the 20th century. Eachvolume has its own expert editor oreditorial team and covers a specificarea or chronological period. Morethan 250 scholars from around theworld, who represent a broad range ofdisciplines, contribute texts thatrange from thematic and general toarticles on techniques and historicaldevelopments, biographical entries,bibliographies, lists of artists andcomprehensive indexes. Historicaldocumentation combines with thebest of current scholarship to makethis the most comprehensive andambitious undertaking of its kind.The volumes explore all aspects ofIrish art and architecture – from highcrosses to installation art, fromGeorgian houses to illuminatedmanuscripts, from watercolours andsculptures to photographs, oilpaintings, video art and tapestries.This monumental work provides newinsight into every facet of thestrength and variety of Ireland’sartistic and architectural heritage.

Published for the Royal IrishAcademy and the Paul Mellon Centrefor Studies in British Art.

VOLUMES IN THE SET:

Medieval c. 400–c. 1600Edited by Rachel MossOctober

592 pp. 285x245mm. 596 colour illus.

HB ISBN 978-0-300-17919-4 £80.00*

Painting 1600–1900Edited by Nicola FiggisOctober


HB ISBN 978-0-300-17920-0 £80.00*

Sculpture 1600–2000Edited by Paula MurphyOctober


HB ISBN 978-0-300-17921-7 £80.00*

Architecture 1600–2000Edited by Rolf Loeber, HughCampbell, Livia Hurley, Ellen RowleyOctober


HB ISBN 978-0-300-17922-4 £80.00*

Twentieth CenturyEdited by Catherine Marshall andPeter MurrayOctober


HB ISBN 978-0-300-17923-1 £80.00*

BOXED 5-VOLUME SETOctober 2928 pp. 285x245mm.2,680 colour illus.ISBN 978-0-300-17924-8Complete 5-Volume Set £300.00*

AR

T A

ND

AR

CH

ITE

CT

UR

E O

F IRE

LAN

D / V

OLU

ME

II

PAINTING 1600–1900

SCULPTURE 1600–2000

AR

T A

ND

AR

CH

ITE

CT

UR

E O

F IRE

LAN

D / V

OLU

ME

III

THE PAUL MELLON CENTRE FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS

George Frederick Bodley and the Later Gothic Revival inBritain and AmericaMichael Hall

British architect George FrederickBodley (1827–1907) fundamentallyshaped the architecture, art anddesign of the Anglican Churchthroughout England and the world;his work survives in the UnitedStates, Australia, India and Italy, aswell as the United Kingdom. Thisimportant book is the first to explorethe life and work of this major GothicRevival architect, a man with anevolving outlook on style andaesthetics who believed that everyelement of a building must be part ofan integrated design strategy. A closecolleague of William Morris andEdward Burne-Jones, Bodley was thefirst major patron of Morris’s stainedglass and, like Morris, was anaccomplished textile and wallpaperdesigner. In 1874 Bodley foundedWatts and Company to manufactureecclesiastical vestments, textiles andwallpapers. In a seamless blend ofarchitectural, art and church history,this lavish volume offers impeccablescholarship on an influential visionaryof Victorian design.

Michael Hall is a noted architecturalhistorian and the author of severalbooks on Victorian architecture andthe Gothic Revival.

September

352 pp. 280x220mm. 150 colour, 60 b/w illus.

HB ISBN 978-0-300-20802-3 £50.00*

Durham Cathedral History, Fabric and CultureEdited by David Brown

For over a millennium Durham hasoccupied a central place in Englishreligious history, with its Normanrebuilding (1093–1133) marking it asan internationally significantmasterpiece in the history ofarchitecture. Its setting, perched on apeninsula formed by a bend in theRiver Wear, adds to the visual dramaof the building. This monumentalvolume offers a comprehensiveaccount, with contributions by a teamof 30 experts, on the founding,development, building and decorationof this magnificent and importantedifice. The essays approach Durhamcathedral from a wide variety of fieldsand vantage points, including liturgy,music, stained-glass decoration andbook collecting. Lavishly illustrated,the book includes both archival andnew photography, and this landmarkpublication is a celebration of Durhamcathedral’s enormous historical,spiritual, cultural and architecturalsignificance.

David Brown is Wardlaw Professorof Theology, Aesthetics and Cultureat the University of St Andrews, andwas formerly a Canon of DurhamCathedral and Van Mildert Professorof Divinity at Durham University.

October


HB ISBN 978-0-300-20818-4 £75.00*

Gothic WonderArt, Artifice and the DecoratedStyle, 1290–1350Paul Binski

In this wide-ranging, eloquent book,Paul Binski sheds new light on one ofthe greatest periods of English artand architecture, offeringground-breaking arguments aboutthe role of invention, making and thepowers of Gothic art. His richlydocumented study locates whatbecame known as the Decorated Stylewithin patterns of commissioning,designing and imagining whoseorigins lay in pre- Gothic art. Byexamining notions of what wasextraordinary, re-evaluating medievalideas of authorship and restoringeconomic considerations to thedebate, Binski sets English visual artof the early 14th century in a broadEuropean context and also within theaesthetic discourses of the medievalperiod. The author makes a powerfulcase for the restoration of thecategory of the aesthetic to theunderstanding of medieval art. Binskitraces the subsequent impact ofEnglish art in Continental Europe,ending with the Black Death and theliterary uses of the architectural inGeoffrey Chaucer and other writers.

Paul Binski is Professor of theHistory of Medieval Art, Universityof Cambridge.

October


HB ISBN 978-0-300-20400-1 £40.00*

FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS THE PAUL MELLON CENTRE

Rediscovering Architecture. Paestumin 18th-century ArchitecturalExperience and TheorySigrid de Jong

The 18th-century rediscovery of thethree archaic Greek-Doric temples inPaestum in southern Italy turnedexisting ideas on classical architectureupside down. The porous limestonetemples with rough, heavy columnswere entirely unlike the classicalarchitecture with which travellerswere familiar. Paestum, exceptional inthe completeness of its ruins, came tofascinate architects, artists, writersand tourists alike, who documentedthe site in drawings and texts. Sigridde Jong analyses extensive originalsource material, including letters,diaries, drawings, paintings,engravings and published texts. Thebook offers new insights on theexplorations of the site, the diversereactions to it, and their dramatic andenduring effect on architecturalthought, as they influencedintellectual debates in England,France and Italy during the long 18thcentury. This unique studyreconstructs Paestum’s key role in thediscourse on classical architecture andthe growing importance of scienceand history in architectural thought.

Sigrid de Jong is a postdoctoralresearcher and lecturer at LeidenUniversity.

December


HB ISBN 978-0-300-19575-0 £50.00*

Owning the Past Why the English CollectedAntique Sculpture, 1640–1840Ruth Guilding

In a lively re-examination of theBritish collectors who oftenbankrupted themselves to possessantique marble statues, Owning thePast chronicles a story of pride,rivalry, snobbery and myopicobsession with posterity andpossession. Analysing the motivesthat drove ‘marble mania’ in Englandfrom the 17th through the early 19thcenturies, Ruth Guilding examineshow the trend of collecting antiquesculpture entrenches the ideals ofconnoisseurship and taste,exacerbates inequities and servesnationalist propaganda. Even today,for the individuals or regimes thatpossess them, classical statuary isseen as a symbol of authority or as thetrophies of a ‘civilised’ power. The2002 sale of the Newby Venus for arecord price of nearly £8m to theEmir of Qatar confirms that marblemania remains unabated. With insideraccess to private collections, Guildingwrites with verve and searing insightinto this absorbing fixation.

Ruth Guilding is an independentscholar and critic, and was thecurator of the 2001 exhibition,Marble Mania: Sculpture Galleries inEngland, 1640–1840.

September


HB ISBN 978-0-300-20819-1 £55.00*

Cultures Crossed John Frederick Lewis and the Art of OrientalismEmily M. Weeks

J. F. Lewis is one of the best-knownyet least understood BritishOrientalist painters of the 19thcentury. His many highly detailedOrientalist images stand in dramaticcontrast to the meagre written recordof the years he spent in Egypt from1841 to 1851. Art historians havelong puzzled over the details andstruggled for meaningful insight intohis process of artful construction.This innovative book, the first criticalmonograph devoted to this acclaimedartist, draws on both new historicaldata and imperial and post-colonialtheory to propose a compelling newinterpretation of Lewis’s paintingsand biography. In addition to offeringformal, historical and theoreticalexaminations of his highly nuancedsubject matter, Weeks argues thatLewis crafted an ambiguous,cross-cultural identity whichchallenged viewers’ understanding offact and fiction and, with his pictures,subverted systems of patriarchalpower in England and abroad.

Emily M. Weeks is an independentart historian and consultant formuseums, auction houses and privatecollectors in America, Europe andthe Middle East.

October


HB ISBN 978-0-300-20816-0 £40.00*

Saturday

o p e n i n g e x h i b i t i o n s

George Frampton, Dame Alice Owen (detail), 1897, marble, alabaster, and bronze, Dame Alice Owen’s School, Potters Bar, Hertfordshire

ya l e c e n t e r f o r b r i t i s h a r t For complete details of the following exhibitions and programs, please visit britishart.yale.edu, phone +1 203 432 2800, or e-mail [email protected] Chapel Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06520 USA

s e l e c t e d l e c t u r e s

ExHibitioN opENiNg CoNvErSAtioN

WEdNESdAy, 10 SEptEmbEr, 5 :30 pm

Sculpture Victorious: Art in an Age of Invention, 1837–1901Curators Martina Droth, Jason Edwards, and Michael Hatt discuss and introduce the exhibition.

lECtUrE ANd book SigNiNg

tUESdAy, 16 SEptEmbEr, 5 :30 pm

Animating the Canvas: Sir Joshua Reynolds, Female Portraiture and the Dynamics of Role-playMark Hallett, Director of Studies, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British ArtThis lecture marks the publication of Professor Hallett’s new book, Reynolds: Portraiture in London.

ExHibitioN opENiNg lECtUrE

WEdNESdAy, 1 oCtobEr, 5 :30 pm

Inspiration and Eccentricity: The Ups and Downs of James NorthcoteMark Ledbury, Power Professor of Art History and Visual Culture and Director of the Power Institute, The University of Sydney

ExHibitioN opENiNg diSCUSSioN


Figures of Empire: Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic BritainA conversation with Tim Barringer, Paul Mellon Professor of the History of Art, Yale University; Kobena Mercer, Professor, History of Art and African American Studies, Yale University; and Titus Kaphar, artist.

FridAy, 10 oCtobEr, 5 :30 pm

An Anglo-American Object? The Greek Slave by Hiram PowersMartina Droth, Associate Director of Research and Curator of Sculpture. This lecture is generously supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art.


Elasticity and Sculptural FormCaroline Arscott, Professor of Nineteenth-Century British Art and Head of Research, Courtauld Institute of Art

Sculpture Victorious: Art in an Age of Invention, 1837–19011 1 SEptEmbEr–30 NovEmbEr

This exhibition, the first of its kind undertaken by a museum, examines the making and viewing of sculpture in Britain and its empire during the reign of Queen Victoria. Co-organized by the Center and Tate Britain, where it will be mounted in spring 2015, the exhibition has been curated by Martina Droth, Associate Director of Research and Education, and Curator of Sculpture at the Yale Center for British Art; Jason Edwards, Professor of History of Art at the University of York; and Michael Hatt, Professor of History of Art at the University of Warwick. The organising curator at Tate Britain is Greg Sullivan, Curator, British Art 1750–1830. Sculpture Victorious will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, published by the Center in association with Yale University Press. The exhibition and related programming have been generously supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art.

Picture Talking: James Northcote and the Fables 2 oCtobEr–14 dECEmbEr The first exhibition dedicated solely to James Northcote’s art and career, Picture Talking presents a fascinating look at one of Britain’s most imaginative and eccentric historical painters. The exhibition has been co-curated by A. Cassandra Albinson, Curator of Paintings and Sculpture at the Center, and Mark Ledbury, Power Professor of Art History and Visual Culture and Director of the Power Institute at the University of Sydney. Picture Talking will be accompanied by the first monograph on Northcote, written by Mark Ledbury and published by the Center in association with Yale University Press.

Figures of Empire: Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain2 oCtobEr–14 dECEmbEr

This collections-based exhibition explores the relationship between the transatlantic slave trade and portraiture in eighteenth-century metropolitan Britain. Figures of Empire has been organised by the Center and curated by Esther Chadwick and Meredith Gamer, PhD candidates in the history of art at Yale University, and Cyra Levenson, Associate Curator of Education at the Yale Center for British Art.

CoNtiNUiNg ExHibitioN | tHroUgH 14 SEptEmbEr

Bruce Davidson/Paul Caponigro: Two American Photographers in Britain and Ireland Pairing for the first time works by Paul Caponigro (b. 1932) and Bruce Davidson (b. 1933), two of the most distinguished photographers of their generation, this exhibition has been co-organised by the Center and the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.

i n t e r n at i o n a l co n f e r e n c e

Visualizing Slavery and British Culture in the Eighteenth Century FridAy–SAtUrdAy, 7–8 NovEmbEr

This two-day international conference will coincide with the Center’s exhibition Figures of Empire. Using a cross-disciplinary approach, the conference will help place the works in the exhibition in a historical context—Britain and its empire from roughly the 1720s to the early 1800s—and explore the black image in British art and culture. Co-sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University.

newsletter - issue 40

Documents