Conference | Drawing as Knowledge
From the PMC:
Drawing as Knowledge: Practice, Theory, and History
Online and in-person, Warburg Institute, London, 16–17 September 2026
A collaboration between the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and the Warburg Institute, this is a conference about ‘drawing as visual thinking’ within the context of British art history, inspired by the life and work of Deanna Petherbridge (1939–2024).
This conference has been organised to coincide with a display at the Paul Mellon Centre, ‘Just on the Edge’: Exploring the Deanna Petherbridge Archive (29 July – 29 October 2026). Featuring materials from Petherbridge’s archive at the PMC, together with artworks from private collections, a key theme of the display is Petherbridge’s lifelong commitment to the medium of drawing as an active process of knowledge acquisition and formation. Delegates will be given the opportunity to view the display and hear from the curator at PMC on the evening of Wednesday, 15 September. This will be followed by two days of papers and discussion in the Warburg Institute’s Lecture Theatre.
One panel will explore drawing within the practice of a range of British artists, including its function, meaning, and relationship with other media. Another will turn to curators, the role of drawing in their collaborations, and the processes of recording and understanding collections. A number of papers grouped around the theme of ‘intersections’ will explore the interconnectedness of artistic drawing practice with other disciplines, such as mapping and writing. Other talks will be situated between art history and medical humanities, looking at the role of drawing in navigating trauma, mental illness, and bereavement. Two of the panels will range across anatomy, natural history, and empire, exploring drawing as a means of knowing, conceptualising, and mastering the world. Encompassing peoples, lands, flora, and fauna, a key focus will be drawing as a technology of both colonial governance and resistance.
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Paul Mellon Centre
5.30 Drinks Reception
Short talk from Petherbridge display curator, Hannah Jones, and opportunity to see the exhibition
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The Warburg Institute
9.30 Registration and coffee
10.00 Welcome and introduction — Kate Retford, Alixe Bovey, and Flora Dennis
10.30 Panel 1 | Artists’ Practices
• Drawing to Belong: Katerina Wilczynski’s Oxford Portraits — Eliza Goodpastures
• A Rhythm of Thrusts and Curves: Barbara Hepworth’s Drawing in the 1950s — Stephen Feeke
• ‘Straining against the Limits of the Archive’: Drawing as Reimagination — Isabel Seligman
Noon Lunch
1.15 Panel 2 | Curators’ Practices
• Drawing Sculpture in the British Museum: William Alexander, Henry Corbould, and the Ancient Marbles — Tessa Kilgarriff
• Drawing Curators: Materiality, Communication, Collaboration — Claire Wintle
• Drawing from Art: Copying, Cognition, and Visual Thinking in the Museum — Antje Southern
2.45 Tea and coffee
3.15 Panel 3 | Care
• Mimesis and Memorialisation: ‘Looking After’ in End-of-Life Drawings — Eve Ess
• Commissioned Drawing as an Encounter between Forms of Knowledge — Rose Forshall and Aimee Middlemiss
• Drawn from Experience: Co-Creating Visual Narratives of Illness, Trauma and Healing — Jenny Wright
• Drawing Loneliness and Connection from the Lived Experience of Mental Distress: Findings from a Pilot Study — Louisa Smyllie-Peters and Jo Doll
5.15 Drinks Reception
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The Warburg Institute
9.00 Arrival and registration
9.15 Panel 4 | Resisting Empire
• Drawing Against the Grain: Colonial Plans, Everyday Paper Handling, and the Production of Spatial Knowledge in Colonial Bombay — Excy Hansda
• Iconologies of Line: Visual Thinking, Medium, and Colonial Power in the Daniells’ Drawings of India — Nuno Grancho
• Counter-Cartographies of Dissent: Dhali Al Mamoon’s Drawing against the Colonial Map — Humaira Hossain
10.45 Panel 5 | Travel
• A Cat Called Beef: Exploring the Drawing Practices of British Naval Officers — Katherine Gazzard
• ‘Sketching and Journalising’: Ottoman Encounters in George Scharf’s Travel Sketchbooks — Sebastian Marshall
11.45 Lunch
1.00 Panel 6 | Natural Histories
• The Quick and the Dead: George Stubbs between Drawing and Painting — Michaela Giebelhausen
• Drawn from Nature: Illustrators as Knowledge-makers in 18th-Century British Natural History — Isobel Elstob
2.00 Tea and coffee
2.30 Panel 7 | Intersections
• Only in Drawing: Impossible Objects and the Pre-Disciplinary Sketch — Tal Horesh
• Tracing Musical Logic in the Legacy of Deanna Petherbridge’s The Primacy of Drawing — Jane Alden (online)
• Cartouches and Calligraphy: Gravelot’s Designs for London’s Writing Masters, 1737–40 — Alice Clanachan
• Property Lines: Drawing, Design, and Documentation on the 18th-Century Landed Estate — John Bonehill
4.30 Concluding remarks
Exhibition | A Light in the Dark: Joseph Wright of Derby
Opening this fall at The Getty:
A Light in the Dark: Joseph Wright of Derby
Getty Center, Los Angeles, 24 November 2026 — 14 March 2027
The British painter Joseph Wright of Derby is celebrated for his astonishing ability to capture the magic of light piercing the dark. In 1760s London he exhibited a series of remarkable pictures that catapulted the provincial artist to national fame. This exhibition reunites several of these works—including the Getty’s recently rediscovered Two Boys with a Bladder—and explores the technical innovations and artistic ambitions behind some of the most enthralling paintings of the 18th century.
From the Getty Shop:
Julia Siemon, ed., A Light in the Dark: Joseph Wright of Derby (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2026), 144 pages, ISBN: 979-8887120416, $30.
The dramatic ‘candlelight’ paintings of Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–1797) cast a spell, enthralling viewers with striking scenes that portray human curiosity, the quiet intensity of domestic life, and the excitement of scientific discovery. With a variety of brushstrokes—dabbed here, whiskered there, and dragged elsewhere—Wright pushed boundaries with the transformative power of light. In 2020, the Getty Museum acquired the newly rediscovered Two Boys with a Bladder (1767), a luminous study of innovation, intimacy, and artistic brilliance that challenged established assumptions about Wright and sparked renewed interest in his experiments with light.
A Light in the Dark presents new research to uncover the origins of Two Boys and expand our understanding of Wright’s early candlelights, tracing the invention and initial development of his distinctive style. Whereas recent scholarship has maintained an outward approach that ties the artist’s oeuvre to places that he visited, this volume returns the focus to Wright himself—his biography, technique, and hometown of Derby—in a much-needed reexamination. Complete with fresh historical and technical evidence, this is a fascinating look into the inspirations, aspirations, and experiments behind some of the most remarkable paintings in the history of British art.
Julia Siemon is deputy director and chief curator at Bard Graduate Center. Her publications include, as editor and primary author, The Silver Caesars (2017), and, as contributing author, The Medici (2021), A Royal Renaissance Treasure and Its Afterlives (2021), and others.
The Magazine of the Decorative Arts Trust, Summer 2026
The Decorative Arts Trust has shared select articles from the summer issue of their member magazine as online articles for all to enjoy.
The Magazine of the Decorative Arts Trust, Summer 2026
• “A Nation of Artists: 250 Years of Creativity” by Alexandra Alevizatos Kirtley Link»
• “Workshop of the World: Arts and Crafts in Philadelphia” by David L. Barquist and Colin Fanning Link»
• “Window to Revolution: Pennsylvania Germans and the War for Independence” by Lisa Minardi, Emily Sneff, Christopher Malone, and Sarah Bowen Link»
• “Seeking Profit and Power: Philadelphia, China Trade, and the Making of America” by Peter Seibert Link»
• “Challenging Masterpieces: Art and Identity in American Furniture” by Josh Lane Link»
• “Radical Americana: 45 Artists and 25 Philadelphia-area Sites Celebrate the Semiquincentennial” by Jennifer Zwilling Link»
• “The Politics of Taste: The Presidential Houses of Virginia and Washington” by Amy Hudson Henderson Link»
• “The Work of the Edinburgh Upholstery Company at Hopetoun House” by Stephen Jackson Link»
• “Philip Trammel Shutze: Atlanta’s Consummate Collector” by Michael Rose Link»
• “Novel Nature: How a Maritime Byproduct Defined the Elite 17th-Century Interior” by Lauryn Smith Link»
The printed Magazine of the Decorative Arts Trust is mailed to Trust members twice per year. If you would like a print copy, click here to become a Trust member.
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