The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art
N EWSLETTER Yale University
September 2014 Issue 40
RICHARD WILSON ONLINE The new digital catalogue raisonné of the works of Richard Wilson goes live on Thursday 23 October. Richard Wilson Online is the outcome of intensive research to re-establish the artist’s true status and redefine his output in celebration of the tercentenary of his birth. Richard Wilson Online is launched as a work-in-progress and provides an up-to-date and freely accessible record of Wilson’s autograph paintings and works on paper. It complements and extends public interest in and academic focus on his achievements created by the exhibition, Richard Wilson and the Transformation of European Landscape Painting, open at Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales until 26 October.
Welcome page of Richard W ilso n Online (design by Peter Thomas) with detail from Anton Raphael Mengs, Richard W ilso n, (1752, Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, Cardiff)
Richard Wilson Online aims to update and assimilate the canonical catalogue raisonné of Wilson’s paintings by Professor W.G. Constable (1953) and Sir Brinsley Ford’s The Drawings of Richard Wilson (1951). There is also a section 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 ownership while new works have emerged, especially in the light of the ground-breaking exhibition, Richard Wilson: The Landscape of Reaction, held in 1982-83. As many as possible of these works have been relocated, re-assessed and re-photographed. The range of institutions containing Wilsons in places as diverse as Australia, Japan and South Africa is documented by an interactive world map of works in public collections. Wilson connoisseurship – notoriously tricky – has been simplified
and enriched by the linking of related works and the inclusion of only those deemed authentic. Exhibitions dedicated to or containing works by Wilson have been recorded, allowing the user extensive access to the artist’s display history. Further links unite each picture with related biographies, publications and documents. There is also a direct link to the Centre’s W.G. Constable Archive. Richard Wilson Online is funded by the Paul Mellon Centre and the compiler is Dr Paul Spencer-Longhurst, Senior Research Fellow, with the collaboration of Professor David Solkin, curator of the 1982-83 exhibition, and of Kate Lowry, formerly Chief Conservator of Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, and with the assistance of Maisoon Rehani and Peter Thomas. To access Richard Wilson Online from 23 October please visit: http://richardwilsononline.ac.uk/
The Paul Mellon Centre Staff Director of Studies: Mark Hallett Deputy Director of Studies: Martin Po stle Assistant Director for Finance and Administration: Sarah Ruddick Assistant Director for Research: Sarah Victo ria Turner Events Co-ordinator and Director’s Assistant: Ella Fleming Yale-in-London Coordinator: Nermin A bdulla Librarian: Emma Floyd Archivist and Records Manager: C harlotte Brunskill Archives and Library Assistant: Jenny Hill Archives and Library Assistant: Frankie Drummo nd Picture Research and Online Cataloguing: Maisoon Rehani Administrative Assistant: Lyndsey G herardi Fellowships and Grants Manager: Mar y 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 G eraghty, Michael Hatt, Nigel Llewellyn, Richard Marks, A ndrew Moore, A ndrew Saint, Shearer W est, A lison Y arrington 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
THE PAUL MELLON CENTRE
ACADEMIC ACTIVITIES
Research Programme Autumn 2014 RESEARCH SEMINARS
RESEARCH LUNCHES
Wednesdays, 6.00–8.00 PM
Fridays, 12.30–2.30
MODERN ART IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY BRITAIN
3rd October Rosie Razzle (Curator of Prints and Drawings, The Royal Collection) Copying Gainsborough: Paul Sandby and the refashioning of his artistic identity
1st October Lynda Nead (Pevsner Professor of History of Art, Birkbeck, University of London) Bombsites: Urban Landscapes and Press Photography in Britain c.1945–55 8th October Anne Wagner (Professor Emerita, Modern and Contemporary Art, UC Berkeley) Lowry and the Local 15th October Lisa Tickner (Visiting Professor, The Courtauld Institute of Art) Antonioni’s ‘Blow-Up’ Details about the Research Seminars and Research Lunches can also be found on the Centre’s website, www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk
PM
17th October Sylvie Simonds (Research Associate, University of York) Dialectics of Liberation: Kinetic Theatre and Strategies of Resistance 14th November Chloe Kroeter (Curatorial Fellow, Watts Gallery) ‘To Illustrate the Beautiful and Noble’: The Drawings of George Frederic Watts 28th November Eleonora Pistis (Scott Opler Research Fellow in Architectural History, Worcester College, Oxford) Nicholas Hawksmoor, Oxford, and 18th-Century Europe
Conference at the British Museum, 30 Oct.–1 Nov. INVENTION AND IMAGINATION BRITISH ART AND ARCHITECTURE, 600-1500
IN
This conference will explore the ways in which artists and patrons in Britain devised and introduced new or distinctive imagery, styles and techniques, as well as novel approaches to bringing different media together. It is concerned with the mechanisms of innovation, with inventive and imaginative processes, and with the relations between conventions and individual expression. The conversation will therefore also address the very
notions of sameness and difference in medieval art and architecture, and how these may be evaluated and explained historically. Tickets are now available via Eventbrite. Please visit our website for further details and the full programme for this conference: www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk
Paul Mellon Centre Expansion Project In order to create an improved environment and increased space for our library and archives, our events programme, our Yale-in-London students and our staff, we are in the process of negotiating with Bedford Estates to obtain the lease at number 15 Bedford Square, adjacent to 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 the standard of our present building, while respecting the historic and aesthetic importance of both premises. As a result of the expansion, and the related construction and refurbishment, it is envisaged that the
Paul Mellon Centre – including the Public Study Room and associated enquiry service – will be closed to the public from Friday 24 October 2014 to the end of June 2015. The Centre’s other departments will continue to work as usual and respond to enquiries by email. Our scheduled events programme for autumn 2014 will not be affected. For further details please refer to the Paul Mellon Centre website. This is an exciting phase in the life of the Centre and we look forward to welcoming visitors to our enhanced and expanded space next summer.
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 on the topic of The Educated Eye? Connoisseurship Now. Keynote talks were given by Stephen Deuchar, Director of The Art Fund, and Elizabeth Prettejohn, Head of the Department of History of Art at the University of York. Bringing together academics, curators, dealers, auction house professionals, conservators and students, the event generated lively discussion about the role and reputation of connoisseurship today; debate took place both at the Centre itself and via the online forum provided by the live stream of the conference over the internet. The debate has continued with commentary on the conference in art journals, editorials and via social media, no doubt facilitated by the ability to watch the event again at http://www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/348/ WORKSHOPS The Centre regularly hosts research and curatorialplanning workshops for small groups of researchers to come together to exchange ideas on particular topics in the history of British art and architecture. These are often exploratory events organised with a view to developing conference projects or exhibition proposals. In recent months, we have hosted a number of such workshops. On May 16th, in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery and Film London, we held a ‘think tank’ on the topic of artists’ moving-image work in Britain 1990-2014. This was the first step towards a larger conference and publication. The Centre is also working with curators from Tate Britain on a series of events focusing on the exhibition cultures of post-war Britain. A workshop on this topic on June 13th helped us shape plans for a larger conference in 2015, details of
which will be announced on our website and in future newsletters. On 16 July, Cicely Robinson and Christopher Garibaldi presented their plans for the new display of British sporting art at the National Horseracing Museum in Newmarket, with responses from art historians and curators, including colleagues at the Yale Center for British Art. PRINT SUMMER SEMINAR A week-long graduate summer seminar was held at the Centre from 21 to 25 July on the topic of ‘British Print Culture in a Transnational Context, 1700-2014’. This was led by Professor Stephen Bann, Gillian Forrester, Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Yale Center for British Art, and Sarah Turner, the Centre’s Assistant Director for Research. Taking the seminar were twelve PhD students selected from institutions in Europe, the United States and Australia. Intensive seminars, trips to study rooms at the British Museum and Tate Britain, and visits to Paragon Press and the studio of Royal Academy President Christopher Le Brun, made for a packed and hugely enjoyable week of scholarly exchange.
Print Summer Seminar, July 2014
Call for Papers British Art Through its Exhibition Histories, 1760 to Now
Association of Art Historians Conference University of East Anglia, 9 – 11 April 2015
This session will explore the varied exhibition cultures of British art from 1760 – the year that saw the first annual exhibition of contemporary British painting, sculpture and printmaking – through to today. It will not seek to offer a chronological history of exhibitions but rather a series of critical propositions that take exhibitions and exhibition culture as a lens through which to examine the history, presentation, marketing and reception of British art, both in the UK and internationally.
Session convenors: Mark Hallett and Sarah Victoria Turner (The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London) and Martina Droth (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven) Deadline for paper proposals: 10 November 2014 For all the details about how to apply, paper proposal guidelines and more information about the conference, see the AAH’s conference website: http://www.aah.org.uk/annual-conference/sessions2015
THE PAUL MELLON CENTRE
COLLECTIONS
Collections at the Paul Mellon Centre W.G. CONSTABLE ARCHIVE Following the launch of the Wilson online catalogue, the Centre now hosts over 60 years of scholarship on the artist. The Archive collections include the papers of W.G. Constable (1887-1976) whose Richard Wilson (1953) was the first catalogue raisonné of the artist. The majority of the Constable Archive relates to this work and includes research notes, correspondence and photographs, many of which have been annotated. Details of and a link to this fully catalogued collection are available 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 the Dennis Sharp Archive, noted in Newsletter 38, is complete and the resulting catalogue descriptions are now available online. Alongside detailed information about the contents of the archive, especially Sharp’s work on the iconic firm of Connell, Ward & Lucas, the catalogue also contains digital images of over 100 key items from the collection. It is full text searchable and available 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, was held in May. This was attended by many notable individuals from the field of architecture and featured fascinating talks by Yasmin Shariff and Sally Rendel. It
was particularly pleasing to welcome members of the families of Amyas Connell and Colin Lucas. Following the success of this event, interest in the archive has been high. Items from the collection have been consulted by a wide range of individuals and in July it was the subject of a Courtauld summer school session, organised by Alan Powers in conjunction with Paul Mellon Centre collections staff. Further information on the Dennis Sharp Archive can also be found in ‘Collections: Spotlight’, a new special features section of the Centre’s website, which showcases exciting projects from the Collections area and highlights key themes illustrated by the material. Work on the Dennis Sharp Archive was undertaken by Liz Moody, an experienced archive cataloguer, who has come to the Centre from the Wallace Collection. The Dennis Sharp Archive is open to all interested researchers. Please contact the collections staff to make an appointment: collections@paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk.
Grant Awards ANNOUNCEMENT OF A NEW AWARD THE ANDREW WYLD RESEARCH SUPPORT GRANT The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art is delighted to announce that it will administer a new category of award from September 2014 on behalf of the Andrew Wyld Fund. Andrew Wyld was a well-known and much respected London art dealer, specialising in 18th- and 19th-century British watercolours. After his death in 2011, a group of friends and family decided to set up a fund in his memory; its aim is to enable students to do exactly as he did: to look 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 and undergraduate students (undertaking dissertation research) working in the field of British works of art on paper of the 18th and 19th centuries. Grants may be used towards the expenses incurred in visiting prints and drawings collections, galleries,
museums, sale rooms and other institutions for the purpose of studying British works of art on paper. The details and application form for the Andrew Wyld Research Support Grants are on the website at www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/179/ and the closing date for applications is 15 September 2014. THE WILHELMINA BARNS-GRAHAM RESEARCH SUPPORT GRANT Since 2009 the Paul Mellon Centre has administered a Research Support Grant on behalf of the Barns-Graham Charitable Trust. The Research Support Grant is an annual award of £2,000 to assist scholars and researchers 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 the website at www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/179/ and the closing date for applications is 15 September 2014.
FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS
John Singer Sargent. Figures and Landscapes 1908–1913 The Complete Paintings, Vol.VIII Richard Ormond & Elaine Kilmurray After John Singer Sargent (1856– 1925) determined to curtail his internationally successful portrait practice, he had more freedom to paint where and what he wanted. This volume transports us to the artist’s most beloved locations, often with his friends and family. In the paintings featured here, Sargent returned to subjects that had always held deep personal connections and artistic challenges: mountains, streams, rocks and torrents, figures in repose, architecture and gardens, boats and shipping. He had known and painted the Alps since childhood, and his new Alpine studies make up the greatest number of works in this book. Beautifully designed, this volume represents a continuation in organisation and presentation and in the high standards that mark the series, and documents 299 works in oil and watercolour. Each painting is catalogued with full provenance, exhibition history and bibliography.
1600–2000
Art and Architecture of Ireland Complete 5-Volume Set Andrew Carpenter, General Editor
A sweeping, gloriously illustrated celebration of 1,600 years of Irish art and architecture. In five handsome, deeply researched volumes, Art and Architecture of Ireland provides an authoritative and fully illustrated account of the art and architecture of Ireland from the early Middle Ages to the end of the 20th century. Each volume has its own expert editor or editorial team and covers a specific area or chronological period. More than 250 scholars from around the world, who represent a broad range of disciplines, contribute texts that range from thematic and general to articles on techniques and historical developments, biographical entries, bibliographies, lists of artists and comprehensive indexes. Historical documentation combines with the best of current scholarship to make this the most comprehensive and ambitious undertaking of its kind. The volumes explore all aspects of Irish art and architecture – from high crosses to installation art, from Richard Ormond is a Sargent scholar Georgian houses to illuminated and an independent art historian. He manuscripts, from watercolours and was formerly Deputy Director of the sculptures to photographs, oil National Portrait Gallery, London, paintings, video art and tapestries. and Director of the National This monumental work provides new Maritime Museum, Greenwich. insight into every facet of the Elaine Kilmurray is a co-author and strength and variety of Ireland’s the research director of the John artistic and architectural heritage. Singer Sargent catalogue raisonné. Published for the Royal Irish August Academy and the Paul Mellon Centre 424 pp. 305x248mm. 420 colour + 58 b/w illus. for Studies in British Art. HB ISBN 978-0-300-17736-7 £50.00*
SCULPTURE
ART AND ARCHITECTURE OF IREL AND / VOLUME III
1600–1900
ART AND ARCHITECTURE OF IREL AND / VOLUME II
PAINTING
THE PAUL MELLON CENTRE
VOLUMES IN THE SET: Medieval c. 400–c. 1600 Edited by Rachel Moss October 592 pp. 285x245mm. 596 colour illus. HB ISBN 978-0-300-17919-4 £80.00*
Painting 1600–1900 Edited by Nicola Figgis October 568 pp. 285x245mm. 530 colour illus. HB ISBN 978-0-300-17920-0 £80.00*
Sculpture 1600–2000 Edited by Paula Murphy October 608 pp. 285x245mm. 533 colour illus. HB ISBN 978-0-300-17921-7 £80.00*
Architecture 1600–2000 Edited by Rolf Loeber, Hugh Campbell, Livia Hurley, Ellen Rowley October 580 pp. 285x245mm. 494 colour illus. HB ISBN 978-0-300-17922-4 £80.00*
Twentieth Century Edited by Catherine Marshall and Peter Murray October 580 pp. 285x245mm. 517 colour illus. HB ISBN 978-0-300-17923-1 £80.00*
BOXED 5-VOLUME SET October 2928 pp. 285x245mm. 2,680 colour illus. ISBN 978-0-300-17924-8 Complete 5-Volume Set £300.00*
THE PAUL MELLON CENTRE
FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS
George Frederick Bodley and the Later Gothic Revival in Britain and America Michael Hall
Gothic Wonder Art, Artifice and the Decorated Style, 1290–1350 Paul Binski
Durham Cathedral History, Fabric and Culture Edited by David Brown
British architect George Frederick Bodley (1827–1907) fundamentally shaped the architecture, art and design of the Anglican Church throughout England and the world; his work survives in the United States, Australia, India and Italy, as well as the United Kingdom. This important book is the first to explore the life and work of this major Gothic Revival architect, a man with an evolving outlook on style and aesthetics who believed that every element of a building must be part of an integrated design strategy. A close colleague of William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, Bodley was the first major patron of Morris’s stained glass and, like Morris, was an accomplished textile and wallpaper designer. In 1874 Bodley founded Watts and Company to manufacture ecclesiastical vestments, textiles and wallpapers. In a seamless blend of architectural, art and church history, this lavish volume offers impeccable scholarship on an influential visionary of Victorian design.
In this wide-ranging, eloquent book, Paul Binski sheds new light on one of the greatest periods of English art and architecture, offering ground-breaking arguments about the role of invention, making and the powers of Gothic art. His richly documented study locates what became known as the Decorated Style within patterns of commissioning, designing and imagining whose origins lay in pre- Gothic art. By examining notions of what was extraordinary, re-evaluating medieval ideas of authorship and restoring economic considerations to the debate, Binski sets English visual art of the early 14th century in a broad European context and also within the aesthetic discourses of the medieval period. The author makes a powerful case for the restoration of the category of the aesthetic to the understanding of medieval art. Binski traces the subsequent impact of English art in Continental Europe, ending with the Black Death and the literary uses of the architectural in Geoffrey Chaucer and other writers.
For over a millennium Durham has occupied a central place in English religious history, with its Norman rebuilding (1093–1133) marking it as an internationally significant masterpiece in the history of architecture. Its setting, perched on a peninsula formed by a bend in the River Wear, adds to the visual drama of the building. This monumental volume offers a comprehensive account, with contributions by a team of 30 experts, on the founding, development, building and decoration of this magnificent and important edifice. The essays approach Durham cathedral from a wide variety of fields and vantage points, including liturgy, music, stained-glass decoration and book collecting. Lavishly illustrated, the book includes both archival and new photography, and this landmark publication is a celebration of Durham cathedral’s enormous historical, spiritual, cultural and architectural significance.
Michael Hall is a noted architectural historian and the author of several books on Victorian architecture and the Gothic Revival.
Paul Binski is Professor of the History of Medieval Art, University of Cambridge.
David Brown is Wardlaw Professor of Theology, Aesthetics and Culture at the University of St Andrews, and was formerly a Canon of Durham Cathedral and Van Mildert Professor of Divinity at Durham University.
September 352 pp. 280x220mm. 150 colour, 60 b/w illus. HB ISBN 978-0-300-20802-3 £50.00*
October 448 pp. 280x220mm. 175 colour, 100 b/w illus. HB ISBN 978-0-300-20400-1 £40.00*
October 544 pp. 285x245mm. 200 colour, 200 b/w illus. HB ISBN 978-0-300-20818-4 £75.00*
FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS
THE PAUL MELLON CENTRE
Owning the Past Why the English Collected Antique Sculpture, 1640–1840 Ruth Guilding
Cultures Crossed John Frederick Lewis and the Art of Orientalism Emily M. Weeks
Rediscovering Architecture. Paestum in 18th-century Architectural Experience and Theory Sigrid de Jong
In a lively re-examination of the British collectors who often bankrupted themselves to possess antique marble statues, Owning the Past chronicles a story of pride, rivalry, snobbery and myopic obsession with posterity and possession. Analysing the motives that drove ‘marble mania’ in England from the 17th through the early 19th centuries, Ruth Guilding examines how the trend of collecting antique sculpture entrenches the ideals of connoisseurship and taste, exacerbates inequities and serves nationalist propaganda. Even today, for the individuals or regimes that possess them, classical statuary is seen as a symbol of authority or as the trophies of a ‘civilised’ power. The 2002 sale of the Newby Venus for a record price of nearly £8m to the Emir of Qatar confirms that marble mania remains unabated. With insider access to private collections, Guilding writes with verve and searing insight into this absorbing fixation.
J. F. Lewis is one of the best-known yet least understood British Orientalist painters of the 19th century. His many highly detailed Orientalist images stand in dramatic contrast to the meagre written record of the years he spent in Egypt from 1841 to 1851. Art historians have long puzzled over the details and struggled for meaningful insight into his process of artful construction. This innovative book, the first critical monograph devoted to this acclaimed artist, draws on both new historical data and imperial and post-colonial theory to propose a compelling new interpretation of Lewis’s paintings and biography. In addition to offering formal, historical and theoretical examinations of his highly nuanced subject matter, Weeks argues that Lewis crafted an ambiguous, cross-cultural identity which challenged viewers’ understanding of fact and fiction and, with his pictures, subverted systems of patriarchal power in England and abroad.
Ruth Guilding is an independent scholar and critic, and was the curator of the 2001 exhibition, Marble Mania: Sculpture Galleries in England, 1640–1840.
Emily M. Weeks is an independent art historian and consultant for museums, auction houses and private collectors in America, Europe and the Middle East.
The 18th-century rediscovery of the three archaic Greek-Doric temples in Paestum in southern Italy turned existing ideas on classical architecture upside down. The porous limestone temples with rough, heavy columns were entirely unlike the classical architecture with which travellers were familiar. Paestum, exceptional in the completeness of its ruins, came to fascinate architects, artists, writers and tourists alike, who documented the site in drawings and texts. Sigrid de Jong analyses extensive original source material, including letters, diaries, drawings, paintings, engravings and published texts. The book offers new insights on the explorations of the site, the diverse reactions to it, and their dramatic and enduring effect on architectural thought, as they influenced intellectual debates in England, France and Italy during the long 18th century. This unique study reconstructs Paestum’s key role in the discourse on classical architecture and the growing importance of science and history in architectural thought.
September 320 pp. 285x245mm. 100 colour, 200 b/w illus. HB ISBN 978-0-300-20819-1 £55.00*
October 256 pp. 279x229mm. 80 colour, 100 b/w illus. HB ISBN 978-0-300-20816-0 £40.00*
Sigrid de Jong is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at Leiden University. December 352 pp. 265x220mm. 100 colour, 185 b/w illus. HB ISBN 978-0-300-19575-0 £50.00*
Saturday
ya l e c e n t e r f o r b r i t i s h a r t 1080 Chapel Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06520 USA
opening Exhibitions
For complete details of the following exhibitions and programs, please visit britishart.yale.edu, phone +1 203 432 2800, or e-mail ycba.info@yale.edu.
selected Lectures
Sculpture Victorious: Art in an Age of Invention, 1837–1901 1 1 S e pt e m b e r–30 N ov e m b e r
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 Oc to b e r–14 Dece mb e r
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 Britain 2 Oc to b e r–14 Dece mb e r
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. Co nti nu i n g e xh i b i ti o n | Th r o u g h 1 4 S e pt e m b e r
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 coorganised 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
Ex h i b i t i o n O p en i ng Co n v e r sat io n We d nes day, 10 S e pt e m b er , 5:3 0 p m
Sculpture Victorious: Art in an Age of Invention, 1837–1901 Curators Martina Droth, Jason Edwards, and Michael Hatt discuss and introduce the exhibition. l ec t u r e an d bo o k s i g ni ng Tues day, 16 S e pt e m b e r , 5:3 0 p m
Animating the Canvas: Sir Joshua Reynolds, Female Portraiture and the Dynamics of Role-play Mark Hallett, Director of Studies, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art This lecture marks the publication of Professor Hallett’s new book, Reynolds: Portraiture in London. Ex h i b i t i o n O p en i ng Lec t u re We d nes day, 1 Octo be r, 5:3 0 p m
Inspiration and Eccentricity: The Ups and Downs of James Northcote Mark Ledbury, Power Professor of Art History and Visual Culture and Director of the Power Institute, The University of Sydney Ex h i b i t i o n O p en i ng D iscuss io n We d nes day, 8 Octo be r, 5:3 0 p m
Figures of Empire: Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain A 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. F ri day, 10 Octo b e r, 5 : 30 p m
An Anglo-American Object? The Greek Slave by Hiram Powers Martina Droth, Associate Director of Research and Curator of Sculpture. This lecture is generously supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art. We dnes day, 15 Octo b er , 5:3 0 p m
Elasticity and Sculptural Form Caroline Arscott, Professor of NineteenthCentury British Art and Head of Research, Courtauld Institute of Art
friday–sat urday, 7– 8 N ov e mb e r
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.
George Frampton, Dame Alice Owen (detail), 1897, marble, alabaster, and bronze, Dame Alice Owen’s School, Potters Bar, Hertfordshire