Art Gallery of New South Wales Features Pre-Raphaelite Drawings

Written by Bruce Coburn Thursday, 02 June 2011 00:32

Sydney, NSW.- The most comprehensive exhibition of Pre-Raphaelite drawings ever staged in Australia will open at the Art Gallery of New South Wales on June 18th. Organised by the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BMAG), this exhibition explores the vital role played by drawing in the works of the Pre-Raphaelites. BMAG houses one of the finest collections of Pre-Raphaelite paintings and holds the largest collection of Pre-Raphaelite drawings in the world. Works from Birmingham form the basis of the exhibition, but there are also key loans from public and private lenders in Britain. "The Poetry of Drawing" On view at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in "The Poetry of Drawing" exhibit from June 18th to September 4th.

"The Poetry of Drawing" presents watercolours as well as works in pen and ink and pencil by the original members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt; their mentor John Ruskin, and the second wave of Pre-Raphaelites such as Edward Burne-Jones, Frederick Sandys and Simeon Solomon. It also shows the influence that Pre-Raphaelite drawing had upon William Morris and the designers of the Arts and Crafts Movement. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB) was formed in London in 1848 when a group of talented young art students banded together with the aim of changing the course of British art. These artists – Millais, Holman Hunt and Rossetti – were joined by four others: Rossetti’s younger brother, William Michael, the painter James Collinson, the sculptor Thomas Woolner, and the writer Frederic George Stephens. These individuals saw themselves as nothing less than revolutionaries. None was older than 23 and Millais was only 19. They were disaffected by the unoriginal training at the Royal Academy Schools. Taking as their guiding principle the idea of depicting a given subject with seriousness, sincerity and an unswerving fidelity to nature, the PRB looked back to the example of early Italian painting (pre-Raphael) as their model.


From the very beginning drawing was a core activity of the PRB. This exhibition features a number of drawings related to some of the most famous Pre-Raphaelite compositions such as Millais’ Ophelia 1852 (Tate), the painting for which Elizabeth Siddal famously posed lying in a bath of water. There are five preparatory drawings by Ford Madox Brown for his most ambitious picture, Chaucer at the Court of Edward III 1847-51.This painting was one of the very first works to be purchased by the newly established Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1876. History, religion and literature were the PRB’s staple sources. Although their works often have a medievalist flavour, the PRB was also concerned with the representation of modern life. The exhibition includes a section on portraits and caricatures, providing an insight into the Pre-Raphaelites’ relationships with their fellow artists, friends and lovers. Other sections are devoted to the role of the Pre-Raphaelites as illustrators of books and journals. There are also meticulously detailed images of the natural world. Pre-Raphaelitism became increasingly concerned with the applied arts after Burne-Jones helped William Morris set up the firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co in 1861. Artists became involved in the design of furniture, stained glass, fabrics, ceramics and jewellery; examples of which will be part of this exhibition.

The beginnings of the Art Gallery of New South Wales (NSW) date back to the 1800s. In the 1870s an Academy of Art was established in Sydney ‘for the purpose of promoting fine arts through lecture, art classes and regular exhibitions’ and, with funds made available by government, acquired the first artworks for the Gallery. The first home for Sydney’s art collection was at Clark’s Assembly Hall in Elizabeth Street. The International Exhibition of 1879 provided an opportunity for the national collection to be re-housed more suitably. Space was initially allocated in the main hall of the Garden Palace, but as lighting and display possibilities were not considered adequate, the government allowed William Wardell to construct a ‘Fine Arts Annex’ of nine rooms near the entrance to the Botanic Gardens. Concerns for safety and conservation of works, as well as the fire which destroyed the Garden Palace in 1882, ruled out the annex as a permanent home for the collection. In December 1885 the collection was moved to a building of six rooms at the present site in the Domain. The present building (originally constructed between 1896 and 1909) is the work of government architect Walter Liberty Vernon, who secured the prestigious commission over the less conventional architect John Horbury Hunt. The trustees demanded a classical temple to art, not unlike William Playfair’s fine gallery in Edinburgh, and that is what they got. The original building has been extended throughout its life, first in 1968 when the NSW government decided that the completion of the Gallery should be a major part of the Captain Cook bicentenary celebrations. This extension, which was opened to the public in November 1970, and those made to the east of the existing structure as part of the national bicentenary in 1988, were both the responsibility of Government architect Andrew Andersons. The 1988 eastern extension doubled the size of the Gallery. It provided expanded display space for the collection and temporary exhibitions, a new gallery for Asian art and an outdoor sculpture garden. In 1994 the Yiribana Gallery, a space devoted to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art and culture, was opened. In 2003, the new Asian gallery, designed by Sydney architect Richard Johnson of Johnson Pilton Walker, was opened. This major building project also included alterations to the original Asian gallery, a new temporary exhibition space above the Gallery’s entrance foyer, new conservation studios, a cafe, a restaurant and a dedicated function area with spectacular harbour views. The gallery is now visited by more than 1,500,000 people annually. Visit the museum’s website … http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/

---

Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~