Display | Jacques-Louis David’s ‘Napoleon’
Now on view at AIC:
Jacques-Louis David’s Napoleon
Art Institute of Chicago, 28 May — 9 October 2016
Jacques-Louis David, The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries, 1812 (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art)
The dominant French painter of the late 18th and early 19th century, Jacques-Louis David responded with brilliant artistry to the extraordinary events unfolding during the French Revolution and its aftermath. With his painting The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries, David created the quintessential image of the legendary leader as a figure of deliberation and action. At the time, Napoleon’s empire was at its height—he had not yet led his army on the disastrous invasion of Russia—and David himself had referred to Napoleon as “the man of the century.” For his painting of this exalted figure, David drew on the tradition of the state portrait, a full-length standing representation that had served as the public image of a ruler since the Renaissance, but he brought new life to the conventional type by placing Napoleon in the foreground and framing him with details that tell a story. David described that story in this way: “Having passed the night composing his Napoleonic code, [the emperor] only realizes that it is dawn from the guttering candles that are about to go out. The clock has just struck four in the morning. With that, he rises from his desk to strap on his sword and review his troops.”
The loan of this great painting from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., provides occasion to highlight related paintings, works on paper, and sculpture in the Art Institute’s own collection. Featured objects include a rarely exhibited sketchbook of studies for another renowned Napoleonic painting by David, The Distribution of the Eagle Standards, which records the ceremonial oath-taking of the generals and officers of the imperial army following Napoleon’s coronation in 1804. This original sketchbook is displayed near an interactive digital reconstruction that allows visitors to turn the book’s pages.
In addition to the NGA loan, the display includes Marie Denise Villers’s 1801 portrait of Charlotte du Val d’Ognes, on loan from The Met (though I’ve been unable to find any mention of it online). The digitized sketchbook is remarkable, but I’m not sure why it’s not also available through the AIC website. –CH
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Lecture | Napoleon, and the Legacy of the Storming of the Bastille
Fullerton Hall, Art Institute of Chicago, 14 July 2016, 2:00pm
In honor of Bastille Day, this lecture interweaves a discussion of Jacques-Louis David’s Napoleon with the history of the Bastille as event, monument, and symbol. Registration required—register today!
Lecture | Aaron Wile, Watteau: Making as Meaning
Jean-Antoine Watteau, The Halt (Alte), ca. 1710–11, oil on canvas, 13 × 17 inches
(Madrid: Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza)
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Next week at The Frick:
Aaron Wile, Watteau: Making as Meaning
The Frick Collection, New York, 13 July 2016
Jean-Antoine Watteau’s military works proffer a modern vision of war in which the soldier’s inner life is brought to the fore. This talk, presented by the curator of the special exhibition Watteau’s Soldiers: Scenes of Military Life in Eighteenth-Century France (on view until October 2), examines how the problem of representing interiority informed the artist’s working methods. Wednesday, July 13, 6pm.
Aaron Wile is the Anne L. Poulet Curatorial Fellow at The Frick Collection.
Course | The Country House: Art, Politics, and Taste
From the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art:
Public Lecture Course | The Country House: Art, Politics, and Taste
Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London, 13 October — 1 December 2016
The Paul Mellon Centre is pleased to announce the 2016 Public Lecture Course: The Country House: Art, Politics, and Taste. The course has been developed in conjunction with the research project Country House: Collections and Display, and both will explore various facets of the collections and display of art in the country house in Britain and Ireland from the sixteenth century to the present day.
The Country House course will be taught by Martin Postle, Deputy Director of Grants and Publications; Jessica Feather, Allen Fellow at the Paul Mellon Centre; and other distinguished scholars from the field. This year’s course will run for eight lectures and will continue to be held weekly on Thursday evenings starting with an informal reception at 18.30. Lectures will then begin at 19.00 followed by a discussion session until 20.30.
The course requires some preparation on the part of the participant. Each lecture will have at most two readings (provided electronically ahead of the start of the course), which participants are strongly encouraged to read in order to have some background knowledge on the topics being discussed in class each week.
As an educational charity the Paul Mellon Centre strives to promote and support academic research into the history of British Art. The Public Lecture Course, which will be free to attend, offers an exciting opportunity to broaden our audiences and to communicate the newest and most original research on British art in an engaging and accessible way.
The Country House will take place on Thursday evenings between 13th October and 1st December 2016 in the Lecture Room at the Paul Mellon Centre. The course syllabus will be made available in July. Registration will open to the public on 1st August 2016. The reading list will be circulated to participants in September.
Lecture Programme for Art Antiques London, 2016
Art Antiques London
Albert Memorial West Lawn, Kesington Gardens, 24–30 June 2016
Albert Memorial and Kensington Gardens once again provide the stunning backdrop to one of London’s most exciting and glamorous art and antique fairs. Held in a beautiful bespoke pavilion opposite the Royal Albert Hall and close to the site of the Great Exhibition of 1851, Art Antiques London brings together leading international dealers and discerning visitors from all over the world, who can buy with confidence at this strictly vetted sumptuous summer showcase for the arts. The fair is complemented with a full lecture programme.
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Saturday, 25 June 2016, 11.30–12.30
Elisabetta Dal Carlo (Curator, The Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice), “Geminiano Cozzi, His Manufactory, and Its Porcelain”
During the eighteenth century, the Serenissima Repubblica was the only State which boasted no less than four porcelain factories, and it is remarkable that none of them had been founded by public decree, but by private initiative. The manufactory founded by Geminiano Cozzi in 1763 achieved a great success in Venice and was active until 1812. The factory was located in San Giobbe, Canaregio and followed a strict trade policy in order to exclude foreign imports in the Venetian market. The lecture will present the story of the manufactory, its huge production of high quality porcelain decorated with rich and brilliant colours, and will focus on the finest pieces featuring all the Venetian charm.
Almost 250 years later, Venice has dedicated a fascinating exhibition to this extraordinary entrepreneur which explores the long activity of the factory and recognizes its rightful place among other European manufactures. The exhibition is the first retrospective on the Cozzi manufactory and offers the public more than 600 items on view, an important collection from national and international museums, enriched by rare pieces from private collections that have never been displayed before. It takes place in Venice, Ca’Rezzonico, Museo del Settecento veneziano from March 18th to July 12th 2016.
Elisabetta Dal Carlo is an art historian, a scholar of decorative arts between baroque and neoclassical styles and a specialist in eighteenth-century ceramics. Curator, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice. She graduated in History of Art at Ca’Foscari University in Venice, and she obtained her Ph.D. in History of Art at Siena University. She lectured in Italy and abroad (London and Paris) on the art of porcelain and she edited some catalogues of decorative arts collections and various publications on Venetian and Veneto art history.
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Saturday, 25 June 2016, 3.00–4.00
Suzanne Findlen Hood (Curator of Ceramics and Glass, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation), “Ceramic Treasures from the Colonial Williamsburg Collection”
Colonial Williamsburg’s collections illuminate our understanding of colonial Virginia and the larger Anglo-American world. In addition to objects of everyday life, Williamsburg has also collected the finest British and American arts. Explore the treasures of Colonial Williamsburg’s ceramics collection from porcelain produced by Chelsea, Bow, and Worcester to exceptional English delft. From a first edition Portland vase, to seventeenth-century German stoneware, Williamsburg’s collection is full of masterpieces that illustrate that teapots and plates are more than just dishes. This lecture will reacquaint you with some old friends and introduce you to some of Colonial Williamsburg’s lesser known strengths. With two museums and more than eighty eighteenth-century buildings, ‘collecting colonial’ in the twenty-first century offers a world of variety.
Suzanne Findlen Hood is the curator of ceramics and glass at Colonial Williamsburg. She has had the privilege of working at Colonial Williamsburg since 2002. Ms. Hood holds a B.A. in history from Wheaton College in Massachusetts and an M.A. from the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture and the University of Delaware. Prior to coming to Colonial Williamsburg, Ms. Hood was employed at The Chipstone Foundation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her research has focused on ceramics owned and used in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century America with a particular emphasis on archaeological ceramics, Chinese export porcelain, salt-glazed stoneware, and British pottery. Ms. Hood is co-author with Janine Skerry of Salt-glazed Stoneware in Early America, winner of the American Ceramic Circle Book Award for 2009. Her most recent exhibition, China of the Most Fashionable Sort: Chinese Export Porcelain in Colonial America, is currently on view at the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, one of the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg.
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Monday, 27 June 2016, 11.30–12.30
Rosalind Sword (BA Cantab, Author and Lecturer), “Coloured Worcester Porcelain of The First Period: The H.R. Marshall Collection at The Ashmolean Museum”
To celebrate the publication of the new Worcester catalogue of the H.R. Marshall Collection at the Ashmolean Museum in August, Rosalind Sword will talk about the highlights of the Marshall collection. Drawing on Marshall’s own papers, the speaker will give further insights into how this amazing, academic, and encyclopaedic collection was formed. Highlights to be discussed will include a rare garniture of five vases decorated by James Giles with naturalistic birds, the ‘Grubbe’ tea jar also by Giles (its partner is in the Museum of Royal Worcester), O’Neale Vases and dishes, a Duvivier signed and decorated teapot, a teapot from the Theatrical Service, and an amazing pair of candlesticks in under-glaze blue. Particular attention will be paid to rare items from the first ten years of the factory such as a Wigornia type cream boat, a large jug decorated with the Stag Hunt pattern, a cylindrical vase with European Figures possibly decorated by O’Neale, tall vases, and many covetable small bottles and dishes of different shapes and decoration. Examples of other items of great interest to Marshall will also be discussed such as comparative or prototype pieces from other factories and armorial porcelain not featured in depth in his own book. This unparalleled 20th-century collection, now re-displayed for the 21st century viewer in the Ashmolean, is an amazing insight into this extraordinary Worcester collection.
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Monday, 27 June 2016, 5.15–6.30
“Face to Face: Dame Rosalind Savill in Conversation with Richard, 10th Duke of Buccleuch and 12th Duke of Queensberry”
In this conversation Dame Rosalind and the 10th Duke of Buccleuch will discuss the extraordinary task of preserving and presenting four most wonderful houses and their sumptuous art treasures in the United Kingdom: Boughton House (The English Versailles), Drumlanrig Castle, Bowhill and Dalkeith Palace in Scotland. His legacy will not simply be one of stewardship and scholarship but also creating innovative exciting landscape projects.
Dame Rosalind Savill DBE, FBA, FSA, Curator Emeritus, The Wallace Collection, London, became a Museum Assistant in the Ceramics Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1973, moving to the Wallace Collection in 1974. There she worked for thirty-seven years, becoming an Assistant Director in 1979 and Director in 1992, and retired in 2011. Her major publication is The Wallace Collection: Catalogue of Sèvres Porcelain, 3 vols, 1988, which won her the National Art-Collection Fund prize for Scholarship in 1990; she has written numerous articles and papers, chiefly on Sèvres porcelain. In 1990 she became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, in 2000 she was awarded a CBE for Services to the Study of Ceramics, in 2006 she became a Fellow of the British Academy, and in 2009 she was awarded a DBE for Services to the Arts. She has Visiting Professorships from the University of Buckingham and the University of the Arts London, won the European Woman of Achievement Award (Arts and Media) 2005 and was a Member of the Conseil d’Administration at Sèvres Cité de la Céramique. Currently her Trusteeships include: the Royal Collection Trust, the Buccleuch Living Heritage Trust and The Wallace Collection Foundation. Dame Rosalind is also President of the French Porcelain Society and of the Academic Committee at Waddesdon Manor.
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Tuesday, 28 June 2016, 11.00–5.00
“The English Ceramics Circle: Study Day | A Taste for the Antique, The Neo-classical Style, and Ceramics in England, ca. 1770–1800″
• Matthew Martin (Curator, NG Victoria), Introduction
• Oliver Fairclough (Hon. Research Fellow, N M Wales), ‘A Very Masterly Stile’: The British Taste for Sèvres Porcelain, 1760–1790
• James Lomax (F.S.A., Emeritus Curator of Collections at Temple Newsam House), The Neo-classical Style and Ceramics at Temple Newsam
• Diana Edwards (porcelain researcher and author), Dry-bodied Pottery
• Leslie Grigsby (Senior Curator of Ceramics and Glass, Winterthur), Some Neo-classical Sources
• Roger Massey (porcelain researcher and author), Derby Bisque Figures
• Patricia Ferguson (ceramics advisor to the National Trust), Vases and Garnitures
• Nicholas Panes (porcelain researcher and author), Bristol Porcelain
Tickets (including a three-course dinner) £110 ECC members. £135 non-ECC members; lectures only £70 ECC members, £85 non-ECC members. For further information please visit the English Ceramics Circle website. Booking information is available here.
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Wednesday, 29 June 2016, 11.30–12.30
Sally Kevill-Davies (Independent writer and researcher), “Chelsea ‘Hans Sloane’ Botanical Porcelain: Visions of Arcadia and America in the English Landscape Garden”
Marking the 300th anniversary of the birth of Lancelot (‘Capability’) Brown (1716–1783), this lecture examines the influx of unknown American trees and shrubs into England during the first decades of the eighteenth century. This was initiated largely by Peter Collinson (1694–1768), a London cloth merchant with a passion for botany, in response to the Enlightenment interest in the natural world, and the desire by English aristocrats to find trees and shrubs with which to adorn their estates in the new fashion for landscape gardening. Through his American contacts Collinson was put in touch with John Bartram (1699–1777), a Pennsylvania farmer, whom he paid to go on hazardous expeditions into virgin territory in search of new plants. These were shipped across the Atlantic, and were eagerly cultivated by London nurserymen, Philip Miller at the Chelsea Physic Garden, and Collinson himself, for distribution to the aristocracy for their fashionable landscape gardens. Many of the plants were painted by Georg Dionysius Ehret (1708–1770) and later engraved, and these images were copied onto porcelain at Nicholas Sprimont’s Chelsea porcelain factory during the 1750s. Thus, the sensational new plants of the American wilderness and of the landscape garden were, for a few years, pictured at the tables of elite Society.”
Sally Kevill-Davies started her ceramic career as a specialist at Sotheby’s, where she worked for nine years. She also worked on re-cataloguing the English porcelain at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and organised an exhibition of Chelsea porcelain for the Chelsea Festival, 1999. She wrote the catalogue, Sir Hans Sloane’s Plants on Chelsea Porcelain for an exhibition in June 2015.
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Wednesday, 29 June 2016, 3.00–4.00
Katharina Hantschmann (Curator for Ceramics at the Bavarian National Museum, Munich and The Ernst Schneider Collection of Meissen Porcelain, Lustheim Castle), “Chinese and Meissen Porcelain of the Bavarian Elector Karl Albrecht: An Exercise in Propaganda”
When in 1740 the German Emperor Karl VI died without a male heir, it was the only time in modern history that a member of the Habsburg family was not elected emperor but one of the other German electors, the Bavarian ruler Karl Albrecht (1697–1745). He substantiated his claim to the title of emperor by detailing familial relationships dating back to the sixteenth century. His dynastic ambitions are reflected in the prestigious and magnificent developments he made to the Munich court decades before, such as commissioning the building of the Reiche Zimmer (‘rich apartment’) in 1730. Also his acquisitions and presentations of exceptional Chinese and Meissen porcelain services bear witness to the elector’s aspirations. A unique service magnificently etched with Augsburg gold decoration on Chinese and Meissen porcelain was probably displayed on a buffet on festive occasions. The Bavarian electors were also early owners of Meissen porcelain, such as four early tea services with Chinese scenes, two presently displayed in the Munich Residenz on tiered silver stands. Was all this an exercise in propaganda? The speaker will explore these aspirations.
Katharina Hantschmann MA, PhD: Curator of Ceramics at the Bavarian National Museum, Munich and The Ernst Schneider Collection of Meissen Porcelain, Lustheim Castle from 1984.
Tom Stammers on Jean-Charles Davillier
Thomas Stammers | Baron Jean-Charles Davillier: A Paragon
and Historian of Taste in Nineteenth-Century France
The Wallace Collection, London, 25 June 2016
The French Porcelain Society is delighted to announce this year’s Sir Geoffrey de Bellaigue Memorial Lecture to be presented by Dr. Thomas Stammers, Durham University, entitled “Baron Jean-Charles Davillier: A Paragon and Historian of Taste in Nineteenth-Century France.”
Baron Jean-Charles Davillier (1823–83) was a pioneering figure in the Second Empire, not simply through his forays into neglected fields—such as Spanish decorative arts—but also through the self-consciousness and erudition he brought to the study of collecting. His landmark publications on the celebrated cabinets and sales of the old regime demonstrate how nineteenth-century amateurs situated themselves in a lineage stretching back, across the revolution, to the ancien régime. This paper situates Davillier within the context of French mid-century collecting, characterized by its expanding geographical reach and heightened emphasis on selection and discernment. It will consider his methods and sources as an historian, and relate his scholarship to both other nascent attempts to write the history of collecting, and to wider cultural politics, not least the violent events of the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune. It will conclude by considering Davillier the patriot, and the controversy that engulfed the donation of his collections to the Louvre and to Sèvres in 1883. Davillier’s career and research are central for understanding how French porcelain was revered as both an aesthetic and technical marvel, and also as an historical document.
Tom Stammers is a cultural historian of France from the Revolution down to the end of the nineteenth century.
The free lecture will be held at The Wallace Collection, Hertford House, Manchester Square, London, W1U 3BN, on Saturday 25 June 2016 at 7:00–8:00pm. To reserve a place, please email fpsmailing@gmail.com.
Lecture | James Legard on Blenheim Palace
This afternoon at the Paul Mellon Centre:
James Legard, Ambitious Architecture: Rethinking the Meanings of Blenheim Palace
The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London, 20 May 2016
This paper seeks to recover the meanings that Blenheim Palace was originally intended to embody. It will show how Blenheim’s purposes were repeatedly reconceived in lockstep with the ever-growing social, political and dynastic ambitions of its patron, the 1st Duke of Marlborough, Queen Anne’s most favoured courtier and foremost military commander. Initially conceived as a private gift from the Queen, the building was transformed first into a ‘public monument’ to a great battle; then into a palace that was, quite literally, fit for a prince; before finally becoming a dangerous liability as Marlborough’s dizzying ascent turned to disgrace. By tracing how the duke’s architects, Sir John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor, reconfigured Blenheim’s formal structure and symbolic programme in response to their patron’s evolving status and aspirations, this analysis aims to bring new clarity to our understanding of Britain’s most spectacular Baroque country house.
All are welcome! However, places are limited, so if you would like to attend please book a place in advance. Friday, 20 May 2016, 12:30–2:00 pm, Seminar Room, Paul Mellon Centre.
James Legard completed a PhD in the history of architecture at the University of York in 2014, where the subject of his thesis was Vanbrugh, Blenheim Palace and the Meanings of Baroque Architecture. He is currently working for the National Gallery on a collaborative project with the Getty Research Institute to digitise early British art sales catalogues. When this project ends later this year, he will take up a recently awarded Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Paul Mellon Centre in order to prepare his thesis for publication.
Lecture | Douglas Fordham on Aquatint Empires
Thomas Daniell, “Part of the Kanaree [Kanheri] Caves, Salsette,” handcoloured aquatint, from Oriental Scenery, 1799.
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This week at the Paul Mellon Centre:
Douglas Fordham, Aquatint Empires
The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London, 18 May 2016
This talk considers the importance of what used to be known as ‘English Coloured Books’ to the conceptualization and visualization of the British Empire. Particular attention will be given to aquatint as a medium, and the ways in which this tonal intaglio process encouraged certain types of visual themes, historical narratives, and viewer responses. Making particular use of the J.R. Abbey collection of ‘Travel in Aquatint and Lithography’ in the Yale Center for British Art, this project explores the production and reception of three ambitious and beautifully illustrated publications: Thomas Daniell’s Hindoo Excavations (1803), William Alexander’s Costume of China (1805), and Samuel Daniell’s African Scenery and Animals (1804–05). This talk asks what these publications might reveal about Britain’s place in the world following the Treaty of Amiens. More broadly, it considers seriality as empire: how did elaborate aquatint publications colour British visions of Africa, Asia, and beyond?
Douglas Fordham is the author of British Art and the Seven Years’ War: Allegiance and Autonomy (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010) and a co-editor with Tim Barringer and Geoff Quilley of Art and the British Empire (Manchester University Press, 2007). He has published articles relating to British art, visual culture, and empire in Art History, The Art Bulletin, Representations, Oxford Art Journal, and elsewhere.
All are welcome! However, places are limited; so if you would like to attend, please book a place in advance. The seminar will be followed by a drinks reception. Wednesday, 18 May 2016, 6:00–8:00pm.
Lecture | Amelia Smith on the Art Collections at Longford Castle
From the flyer for this evening’s lecture:
Amelia Smith, Art in the Archives: Insights into the
18th-Century Art Collections at Longford Castle, Wiltshire
Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, Chippenham, 12 May 2016
Longford Castle, an Elizabethan country house situated near Salisbury in Wiltshire and owned by the Earls of Radnor, has been home to an art collection of national significance since the eighteenth century. The recent donation of the family papers to the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre has enabled this important archive (reference 1946) to be studied for the first time. This talk will tell the story of the formation of the art collection, highlighting key documents from the archive, such as inventories, account books and letters, contextualising them alongside pictures from Longford itself.
Thursday, 12 May 2016, 7:00pm, at Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre. While the talk is free, it is essential to book a ticket in advance, from localstudies@wiltshire.gov.uk (or tel 01249 705500), to avoid disappointment. Tickets will be allocated on a first come, first served, basis.
Amelia Smith is writing a PhD on “Patronage, Acquisition and Display: Contextualising the Art Collections of Longford Castle during the Long Eighteenth Century,” a collaborative project between the National Gallery and Birkbeck, University of London. Her research draws upon the previously untapped archival material on Longford now housed at the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre.
Lecture | Tobias Locker on ‘Rococo for the Spanish Court’
Tomorrow at the BGC:
Tobias Locker, Rococo for the Spanish Court:
The Interiors of Mattia Gasparini in the European Context
Bard Graduate Center, New York, 4 May 2016
Mattia Gasparini (design), José Canops (execution): (one of two) Chest of drawers (with secret compartments), HWD 94.5 x 95.3 x 45.3 cm, 1760/65, different exotic marquetry woods (partly sculpted) and engraved brass marquetry on mahogany, gilt bronze mounts and marble top (Palacio Real Madrid).
The presentation focuses on the person and the production of Mattia Gasparini, who worked for Charles III of Spain in Madrid. Its research follows three axis. A first focus is set on Gasparini and the creation of his Spanish Rococo interiors, that is the reconstruction of workshops and working practice on the basis of written sources and selected furniture—as objects as well as documents show manifold connection to the French capital (French workforce, technical and stylistic aspects). A second is set on distinguishing the French influence of the furniture by way of comparison with Parisian examples. Finally, the presentation contextualizes the interiors through comparison of the above mentioned aspects (style, technique, knowledge and provenance of workforce, quality) with the interiors at Potsdam/Prussia and Schönbrunn/Austria.
Tobias Locker is Adjunct Lecturer of Art History, Pompeu Fabra University and Visiting Fellow, Bard Graduate Center.
Coffee and tea will be served; attendees are welcome to bring their own lunch. RSVP is required. Please click on the registration link or contact academicevents@bgc.bard.edu. The event will also be live-streamed.
Wednesday, May 4, 2016, 12:00–1:30pm
Bard Graduate Center (38 West 86th Street)
Study Day | William Blake’s Printing Techniques
William Blake Study Day
Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury, Suffolk, 6 May 2016
This study day will comprise a morning lecture by Michael Phillips, who will discuss Blake’s ground-breaking print techniques, followed by lunch (for those attending the full day) and an afternoon demonstration of the full-scale reproduction of Blake’s wooden printing press that is currently located in the exhibition gallery at Gainsborough’s House. Attendees will have the rare opportunity to use the press to make a print from a choice of copper plates.
Michael Phillips, who will lead the day, was guest curator of three major exhibitions on Blake: at Tate Britain in 2000; Petit Palais in 2009; and most recently his acclaimed exhibition and catalogue, William Blake Apprentice & Master, at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, in 2014–15. Michael’s training as a printmaker and his research into Blake’s methods and materials over more than 25 years has enabled him to explore and replicate Blake’s graphic techniques used in producing the illuminated books and separate prints.
Tickets: £8 morning illustrated lecture, or £40 full day, including illustrated lecture, lunch and afternoon printmaking demonstration. To book your place please contact us at mail@gainsborough.org.
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