Enfilade

Installation view of the exhibition Franz Xaver Messerschmidt: More Than Character Heads
(Wien: Lower Belvedere; photo by Johannes Stoll).

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From the press release for the exhibition:

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt: More Than Character Heads

Lower Belvedere, Vienna, 31 October 2025 — 6 April 2026

Curated by Katharina Lovecky and Georg Lechner, with Kati Renner

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt (1736–1783) is presented as an artist at a cultural and political turning point in history. His portraits of members of the court and the aristocracy, scholars, scientists, and writers offer an insight into the social structures of his day. Furthermore, his now iconic ‘Character Heads’, which he started working on in 1770, are also interpreted as a phenomenon of their time. The exhibition compares Messerschmidt’s sculptures to the work of other artists with whom he has often been associated with the aim of critically questioning possible parallels and influences.

General Director Stella Rollig: “No other artist from the Belvedere’s collection holds equal fascination for both the public and artists in the same way as Messerschmidt. Was he a genius or an outsider? Many identities have been attributed to him through history, some of which are pure fiction. This exhibition considers these various interpretations from today’s perspective and shows the full scope of his work in a way that has not been seen for a long time.”

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt is one of the pivotal artists in the Belvedere’s collection. The museum holds the world’s largest selection of works by this sculptor and has showcased these in its permanent displays for over a century. From around 1769 Messerschmidt’s portraits reflected a new image of humanity, permeated with the ideas of the Enlightenment, with emphasis moving away from Baroque pomp to place a greater focus on the individual. Moreover, the patrons and personalities he portrayed—such as Maria Theresia Felicitas von Savoy-Carignan, physicians Gerard van Swieten and Franz Anton Mesmer, and art writer Franz Christoph von Scheyb—shed light on the cultural, political, and intellectual world of the eighteenth century.

Although Messerschmidt’s ‘Character Heads’ are now famous, they remain a puzzle to this day. The psychopathological interpretation—extremely popular since the twentieth century—is a narrow lens through which to view these objects and ignores the fact that the sculptor was responding to the profound social and intellectual changes of the eighteenth century in his work. The exhibition aims to situate Messerschmidt’s ‘Character Heads’ in the context of that period’s preoccupation with facial expressions and to read them as a phenomenon of their time. Comparisons with works by artists such as Joseph Ducreux, William Hogarth, and Jakob Matthias Schmutzer confirm that the fascination with the face (and its aberrations) was by no means unique in this age.

“Despite the fact that Messerschmidt’s intentions remain unclear, we can identify key intellectual trends from the eighteenth century in his ‘Character Heads’—even now they still inspire direct responses from viewers. Their frontality and expressive power are classic examples of the departure from academic neoclassicism,” said curator Katharina Lovecky.

Curator Georg Lechner added: “Messerschmidt’s ‘Character Heads’ have had an eventful exhibition history reflecting their varied reception—from amusing curiosity to important works of art history. After the Baroque Museum was opened in the Lower Belvedere, Messerschmidt’s sculptures became established museum pieces and were permanently incorporated into art-historical debate.”

Georg Lechner, Katharina Lovecky, and Stella Rollig, eds., Franz Xaver Messerschmidt: Mehr als Charakterköpfe / More than Character Heads (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König, 2025), 208 pages, ISBN: 978-3753309064, €35. Bilingual catalogue.

Detail from Joseph Wright, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, 1768
(London: The National Gallery)

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From the press release for the exhibition:

Wright of Derby: From the Shadows

National Gallery, London, 7 November 2025 — 10 May 2026
Derby Museums, 2026

In the autumn of 2025, the National Gallery will present Wright of Derby: From the Shadows, the first exhibition dedicated to Joseph Wright ‘of Derby’ (1734–1797) at the National Gallery, and the first exhibition to focus on his ‘candlelight’ series. The exhibition is organised in partnership with Derby Museums where it will travel in 2026.

Following on from recent exhibitions such as Turner on Tour (2022) and Discover Constable & The Hay Wain (2024), this exhibition will put the spotlight on a well-known British artist in the National Gallery Collection whose work has come to symbolise an era. Traditionally, Wright of Derby has been viewed as a figurehead of the Enlightenment, a period of scientific, philosophical and artistic development in the 17th and 18th century. Challenging this conventional view, the exhibition contributes to the ongoing re-evaluation of the artist, portraying him not merely as a ‘painter of light’ but as one who deliberately explores the night-time to engage with deeper and more sombre themes, including death, melancholy, morality, scepticism, and the sublime.

This exhibition will focus on Joseph Wright’s career between 1765 and 1773, during which time he made a series of candlelit scenes. We will show a number of masterpieces from this period including Three Persons Viewing the Gladiator by Candlelight (1765, private collection), A Philosopher giving that Lecture on the Orrery in which a lamp is put in place of the Sun (1766, Derby Museum and Art Gallery), and the National Gallery’s An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768). This marks the first time in 35 years that all these works will be brought together. In these ‘candlelight’ paintings, Wright of Derby shows thrilling moments, not just of discovery but of shared learning. His dramatic depictions of natural and artificial light link his work back to the artistic traditions of the Renaissance and artists such as Caravaggio, whose strong light and deep shadows were rarely employed in British art before the mid-18th century.

Yet Wright of Derby also engaged with very contemporary questions around the act of observation, spectacle and education raised by philosophers of the Enlightenment. In his masterpiece An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, a travelling lecturer shows a well-established experiment to a family audience whose reactions range from wonder to horror. In The Orrery, the first of his paintings on a ‘scientific’ subject, a philosopher presents a lecture on astronomy using a clockwork model of the solar system as the centrepiece, the sun replaced by an oil lamp. In Three Persons Viewing the Gladiator by Candlelight, one artist holds up a drawing of the central sculpture for critical assessment. These works explore moral ambiguity in acts of looking, as well as the intellectual influence of ‘high’ art.

Wright ‘of Derby’ was working at a turning point for art viewing in the 18th century, when the public display of art and the instigation of annual contemporary art exhibitions were being promoted. The Air Pump was completed the same year as the creation of the Royal Academy and was intended to be accessible to a broad public (though it was displayed at the Society of Artists). Mezzotint prints of Wright’s works, which played a key role in establishing his international reputation, will also be on display. These luxury prints highlight how the artist took full advantage of popular reproduction techniques of his time to expand his reputation both at home and abroad.

Wright of Derby: From the Shadows will show over twenty works, including other paintings, works on paper, and objects that explore both Wright of Derby’s artistic practice and the historic context of scientific and artistic development in which they were made. Seventeen artworks will be coming from Derby Museums, who hold the world’s largest collection of Wright’s work. In 2026, Wright of Derby: From the Shadows, will travel to Derby Museum and Art Gallery, bringing two of Wright’s most famous works, The Air Pump and The Orrery, back to his hometown for the first time in 80 years.

Christine Riding and Jon King, Wright of Derby: From the Shadows (London, National Gallery London, 2025), 96 pages, ISBN: 978-1857097467, £20.

Soane office, Royal Academy Lecture Drawings of the work of Sir John Vanbrugh, Blenheim Palace, elevation
(London: Sir John Soane’s Museum, SM 74/4/8)

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The exhibition opens in the spring; the book launches this fall:

Vanbrugh: The Drama of Architecture

Sir John Soane’s Museum, London, 4 March — 28 June 2026

Curated by Charles Saumarez Smith

300 years after his death, a major new exhibition exploring one of the UK’s greatest architects—Sir John Vanbrugh (1664–1726)—will open in the spring at Sir John Soane’s Museum. Some of the UK’s most admired and loved country houses like Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard were the result of Vanbrugh’s genius, becoming cornerstones of English Baroque. Soane cited him as one of his great influences, saying Vanbrugh had “all the fire and power of Michelangelo and Bernini.”

Curated by Sir Charles Saumarez Smith CBE and architect Roz Barr, the exhibition will feature never-before-exhibited drawings from the collections of the V&A, the Royal Institute of British Architects, the National Portrait Gallery, and Sir John Soane’s Museum, including many in Vanbrugh’s own hand. Perhaps overshadowed by contemporaries Nicholas Hawksmoor and Sir Christopher Wren, the emotional impact and imagination of Vanbrugh has continued to be admired, particularly by architects, in the centuries since. The exhibition will highlight Vanbrugh’s enduring architectural ideas and influence, including on two of the most influential architects of the 20th century, Robert Venturi (1925–2018) and Denise Scott Brown (b.1931). A new short film by filmmaker Jim Venturi, their son, will explore this connection and will be shown on loop in the Museum’s Foyle Space. Vanbrugh: The Drama of Architecture will introduce new audiences to the work of an English Baroque architect, adventurer, playwright, and spy 300 years after his death.

Charles Saumarez Smith, John Vanbrugh: The Drama of Architecture (London: Lund Humphries, 2025), 272 pages, ISBN: 978-1848227316, £30.

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Book tickets at Wigmore Hall:

Book launch | John Vanbrugh: The Drama of Architecture
The Wigmore Hall, London, 20 November 2025, 12.30pm

Charles Saumarez Smith will give a lunchtime talk on Vanbrugh’s extraordinary life: his upbringing; why he spent so much time in a French gaol; the writing of The Relapse and The Provoked Wife; and how he came to design Castle Howard with no previous experience of architecture. Saumarez Smith will give particular attention to Vanbrugh’s work as a theatrical impresario and the designer of the Queen’s Theatre, Haymarket, so disastrous as a venue for plays, but where all of Handel’s early operas were performed. He will then describe Vanbrugh’s quarrel with the Duchess of Marlborough and his later work as an architect, at King’s Weston, Claremont, Grimsthorpe, Seaton Delaval, and Stowe. In recent years, Vanbrugh’s reputation as an architect has been eclipsed by his subordinate, Nicholas Hawksmoor. This talk and the accompanying book will explain Vanbrugh’s originality and influence on later architects from Robert Adam to Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown.