British Art from the AMAM Collection

August 26 – December 23, 2008

John N. Stern Gallery (directions)

Encompassing 13th-century illuminated manuscripts, William Hogarth's witty "moral progresses," the Pre-Raphaelites of the Victorian Age, Henry Moore's undulating forms, and Bridget Riley's Op Art abstrations, this exhibition showcases more than seven centuries of British art from the AMAM collection. With attention to their social and cultural context, more than 100 objects in varied media chart the rise of a national school, the birth of photography, the emergence of modernism, and the country's rich traditions of history painting, satire, portraiture, and landscape. Artists such as Vanessa Bell, William Blake, Julia Margaret Cameron, Henry Fuseli, Richard Hamilton, William Morris, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and J.M.W. Turner elucidate what Nicholas Pevsner famously defined in 1955 as the "Englishness" of English art. Far from parochial, however, the powerfully imaginative works on display also attest to Britain's significant artistic influence beyond its own borders.

 

Organized by Colette Crossman, AMAM Curator of Academic Programs, and Elizabeth Koehn ’09.