The Art Gallery of Ballarat is delighted to present a special exhibition featuring works never before seen in Australia from The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, Pre-Raphaelites: Drawings and Watercolours. Alongside, in a special double feature is an exhibition of historical and contemporary Australian artworks drawing from the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites, In the Company of Morris.
Click here to watch Gallery Director, Louise Tegart speaking about the importance of these historical works.
Few people have ever examined the large number of Pre-Raphaelite works on paper held in the Western Art Print Room at The Ashmolean. Even enthusiasts and scholars have rarely looked at more than a selection. The Ashmolean has generously lent the Art Gallery of Ballarat artworks from their permanent collection and the exhibition makes it possible to see a wide range of these fragile works together for the first time in Australia in this exhibition which is exclusive to Ballarat.
The works offer an intimate and rare glimpse into the world of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the artists associated with the movement. The exhibition includes works of extraordinary beauty, from the portraits the artists made of each other, studies for paintings and commissions, to subjects taken from history, literature and landscape.
Art Gallery of Ballarat Director, Louise Tegart said ‘We are thrilled to be partnering with the renowned Ashmolean Museum to bring this stunning exhibition to Ballarat. These little seen artworks show a different side to the Pre-Raphaelites than the paintings that have been reproduced widely. The exhibition ties in perfectly with the Gallery’s history. James Oddie, founder of the Art Gallery of Ballarat, came out from England and believed in the ethos of Pre-Raphaelites John Ruskin and William Morris – that art is for everyone and can improve our everyday lives. The Gallery’s motto “Not for self but for all” reflects that philosophy.
At the same time the Pre-Raphaelites were emerging in England, Ballarat was growing as a goldrush town. Pre-Raphaelites Thomas Woolner and Bernhard Smith made their way to the Ballarat goldfields and continued their artistic careers furthering public knowledge of the movement in Australia. Relatives of various members emigrated to Australia and did much to promote the Brotherhood.
Australian audiences loved the work of the Pre- Raphaelites then as they still do today and I know this is going to be an exhibition that will capture the public’s imagination as it provides an insight into the life and loves of this special group of artists.”
In 1848, seven young artists, including John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, resolved to rebel against the academic teaching of the Royal Academy of Arts. They proposed a new mode of working, forward-looking despite the movement’s name, which would depart from the ‘mannered’ style of artists who came after Raphael. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB) set out to paint with originality and authenticity by studying nature, celebrating their friends and heroes and taking inspiration from the art and poetry about which they were passionate. This innovative approach and their characteristic styles influenced younger generations of British artists well into the 20th century.
Some key events in the history of Pre-Raphaelitism took place in Oxford. Thomas Combe, the senior partner of the University Press, and his wife, Martha, were important patrons and surrogate parents to the young artists, hosting them at Christmas and buying their early works. When Martha Combe died she left the couple’s considerable collection of Pre- Raphaelite drawings and paintings to the Ashmolean. William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones became converts to the movement while they were studying at Exeter College. It was in an Oxford theatre that another key figure, Jane Burden, met Morris and Rossetti, the two men who became her husband and her lover.
Oxford, too, played an important role in John Ruskin’s life, and he began donating many of his own exquisite drawings to the University in the 1870s.
Small, affectionate sketches offer insights into the Pre-Raphaelites’ lives and relationships. Millais and Charles Allston Collins made pencil drawings of one another in 1850, both looking extremely young and very serious. Rossetti’s profile watercolour of Elizabeth Siddal (1854) is an early example of the now iconic Pre- Raphaelite woman, revealing an artist captivated by his model. They went on to marry in 1860. Siddal’s own work is included in the exhibition, challenging the concept that the Pre-Raphaelites viewed women merely as muses. The works on paper in the exhibition show a huge variety of styles, methods and media. Millais and Holman Hunt had been through the rigorous training of the Royal Academy Schools, with its emphasis on drawing the human figure. Rossetti and Burne-Jones were relatively untrained and arguably more original as a result.
Watercolours by John Brett and Simeon Solomon resemble oil paintings in their intensity of colour and rendition of light. John Ruskin came from a different tradition again, that of the amateur watercolourist. He was a gifted draughtsman, and his nature studies are miracles of acute observation. He confessed, however, that he was unable to paint from imagination: ‘I can do nothing that I haven’t before me; I cannot change, or arrange, or modify in the least, and that amounts to a veto on producing a great picture’.
The Pre-Raphaelites are possibly best known for their depictions of women. Rossetti popularised the term ‘stunner’ – which now rings uncomfortably in modern ears. At the time, it indicated progressive thinking: the Pre-Raphaelite ‘stunner’ was an unconventional beauty combining strikingly strong, even androgynous features, with an ethereal quality implying a rich inner life. The women celebrated in these pictures were often artists and intellectuals. Jane Burden was a remarkable woman who despite having little childhood education became hugely accomplished, speaking French and Italian and playing an important role in Morris & Co. She modelled countless times for Rossetti, posing as literary characters or just captured reading a newspaper on a sofa.
Both Elizabeth Siddal and Marie Spartali Stillman were gifted artists whose own work features in the exhibition and ought to be better known. As models these women often wore floating, unstructured dresses, disposing of the corsets and crinolines of Victorian convention. They cultivated their own images and their portraits show conscious participation in the development of Pre-Raphaelite visual culture.
The Pre-Raphaelites were fascinated by the costumes and artefacts of the past and they loved literature, especially poetry. Several works in the exhibition were designed as book illustrations. The PRB drew up a list of literary ‘Immortals’, with rankings from one to four stars. Chaucer had two stars, while Shakespeare had three (the highest rating apart from Jesus Christ, who had four), Browning had two and Tennyson just one.
Preparatory drawings provide us with important information about how artists’ ideas evolved. A rapid sketch, literally on the back of an envelope, was Holman Hunt’s first draft for The Light of the World (1851). Drawing was the foundational skill championed by Ruskin, the PRB’s most important advocate. Ruskin drew throughout his life. He made delicate observations of natural history specimens, and many studies of buildings in Florence, Venice and Pisa. His landscape paintings show how deeply he had absorbed the art of Turner; but his studies of rocks, flowers and leaves are more Pre-Raphaelite. They adopt a style of hyperreal clarity and meticulous detail. Passionate about teaching, he gave a large collection to Oxford University, to be used for instructing undergraduates and working people in drawing.
Departing from academic training, Pre-Raphaelite landscape painters worked out of doors. They aimed to capture the effects of sunlight and shadow and to include every detail that they could see. They often chose surprising effects of atmosphere and colour, or depicted familiar subjects from unusual viewpoints. Instead of using only transparent washes, they also worked with bodycolour (gouache) which produces intense colours. Some went abroad to find spectacular scenery; others stayed in southern England and found beauty in simple, everyday scenes. Their subjects range from the ancient city of Jerusalem (Thomas Seddon, 1854) to an old barn near Reading (George Price Boyce, 1863).
The exhibition is curated by Christiana Payne, Professor Emerita of History of Art, Oxford Brookes University. She says: ‘The Ashmolean is home to one of the greatest collections of Pre-Raphaelite works to be found anywhere in the world. This first large-scale exhibition of works on paper offers a chance to look at the whole range of their output across different subjects, styles and media. It demonstrates their individual skills, collective creativity and revolutionary thinking about art and society which was to have a lasting impact on British art history.’
This is an incredible opportunity to view these little seen works on their first and last visit to Australia an exclusive to the Art Gallery of Ballarat.
In the Company of Morris
In conjunction with the Ashmolean Museum exhibition Pre-Raphaelites Drawings and Watercolours, the Art Gallery of Ballarat showcases an exhibition of historical and contemporary Australian artworks demonstrating the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites and in particular William Morris, entitled In the Company of Morris.
William Morris, the Pre Raphaelite-polymath, visionary thinker, designer, writer, artist, poet, environmental crusader and social activist, was one of the most important and inspiring figures of the 19th century. He believed in the rights of every individual to improve the world and that good design should be available for all as summed up in his statement – ‘I do not want art for a few any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few’. In reaction to the Industrial Revolution, Morris argued for a return to nature rejecting mass production and commercialism and championing all things handmade. He imagined a future where the world would have ‘A new art, a glorious art, made by the people and for the people’.
Morris championed the beauty of handcraft methods based on medieval craft societies and as an active socialist he promoted the artist or maker being involved in all aspects of an artwork’s manufacture.
The influence of his radical, anti-industrial ideas in both design and politics continues to be visible in the British cultural landscape today. Morris has left a lasting legacy in Australia, his writings were used in early art school teachings, his workshop produced tapestries for families across the country and his philosophies influenced countless artists. His wallpaper designs and rugs can still be found in homes today.
At the Art Gallery of Ballarat the influence of William Morris and his statement – ‘What business do we have with art at all unless we can share it’ – is reflected in the Gallery’s founding principle ‘Not for self but for all’ and in works by historical and contemporary artists in the Gallery’s Collection.
Artists included in the In the company of Morris exhibition include Norman Lindsay, Deborah Klein, Elizabeth Pulie, William Strutt, Fiona Hiscock, Natasha Bieniek, Christian Waller, Napier Waller, Kate Rohde, Thomas Woolner, Bernhard Smith, Alice Muskett, Louiseann King, Stephen Bird, Janet Beckhouse and Emily Floyd.
ART GALLERY OF BALLARAT
40 Lydiard Street North, Ballarat
Bookings and more information: artgalleryofballarat.com.au/
One ticket gives entry to two exhibitions. Ticket prices are Adult $20, Concession $17, Gallery Member $15, Child $8, Family $50 (2 Adults & up to 3 Children).
Images and resources are available here. Interviews with Louise Tegart available on request.
The Art Gallery of Ballarat
Founded in 1884, the Art Gallery of Ballarat is the oldest, largest and most significant art collection in regional Australia. The Gallery brings in over 200,000 visitors annually and is a major part of Ballarat’s visitor economy as well as a focus for visual arts in the Ballarat region. A recognised leader in regional arts, the Gallery is known for mounting high-profile, high-quality exhibition that contribute to national conversations and debates about culture and identity.
Image credits
Top left: Marie Spartali Stillman, Cloister Lilies, 1891, Watercolour and bodycolor on paper, © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Middle Right: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Jane Morris in Icelandic Costume, circa 1873, Pen and ink on paper, Private collection © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Middle Left: William Morris, Minstrel Angel playing cymbals, circa 1867, Pen with blue and brown ink and watercolour on discoloured pale buff paper, © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, Bequeathed by John N. Bryson, 1977
Bottom Right: Deborah Klein, Three women, 2021, triptych, synthetic polymer paint on linen, Proposed acquisition, Copyright Deborah Klein. Images courtesy the Art Gallery of Ballarat
