Books in the Studies in British Art series

"This magnificent catalogue, in three volumes and with nearly 2,000 illustrations, will restore George Romney (1734-1802) to his long-overdue position - with his contemporaries Reynolds and Gainsborough - as a master of 18th-century British portrait painting. The product of impressive and thorough research undertaken over the course of 20 years, Alex Kidson asserts Romney's status as one of the greatest British painters, whose last catalogue raisonne was published over 100 years ago. In more than 1,800 entries, many supported by new photography, Kidson aims to solve longstanding issues of attribution, distinguishing genuine pictures by Romney from works whose traditional attribution to him can no longer be supported. The author's insights are guided by rich primary source material on Romney--including account books, ledgers, and sketchbooks--as well as secondary sources such as prints after lost works, newspaper reports and reviews, and writings by Romney's contemporaries"--

Previous studies of this subject have been largely confined to the importance of Romanticism and Impressionism; this book covers the entire field and offers an encyclopaedic account of all aspects of the British reception of French art in the nineteenth century.

George Frederic Watts (1817-1904) was a titanic figure in nineteenth-century British art. The father of British Symbolism and portrait painter of his age, he forged a controversial career that spanned the reign of Queen Victoria. This book, the first in-depth biography of Watts, sheds new light on the pioneering spirit and breadth of mind of the artist.Drawing on Watts's abundant personal correspondence and diaries and an array of other contemporary documents, the book chronicles the artist's career and personal life, including his friendships with Edward Burne-Jones, Frederic Leighton, William Gladstone, and Alfred Tennyson and his relationships with a series of singular women. The book also examines Watts's wide reforming zeal and political agenda as well as his role and dealings in the Victorian art world.

William Holman Hunt was one of the major artistic talents of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, founded in 1848. Hunt's work was always characterised by great seriousness of purpose and his paintings include many of its most beautiful and powerful images. This two volume set takes an in-depth look at his work.

A collection of writings reinterpreting the art of Frederic Leighton, challenging the view that limits him to the category of "Victorian artist". It extends the discussion beyond Leighton's life and addresses issues such as gender and sexuality, and the artist's identity and self-positioning.

Luxurious, beautiful, and portable, tapestry was the pre-eminent art form of the Tudor court. Henry VIII amassed an unrivaled collection over the course of his reign. This work weaves the history of this collection into the life of its owner with a narrative style. It also includes photographs that recreates Europe's greatest tapestry collection.

From fine art paintings by such artists as Stubbs and Landseer to zoological illustrations and popular prints, a vast array of animal images was created in Britain during the century from 1750 to 1850. This book investigates the rich meanings of these visual representations as well as the ways in which animals were actually used and abused.

The friendship between William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones began when they met as undergraduates in 1853 and lasted until Morris' death in 1896, despite their differences in temperament and in attitudes to political engagement. This book explores particular aspects of the paintings of Burne-Jones and the designs of Morris.

When the motor car first came to England in the 1890s, it was a luxury item with little practical purpose - drivers couldn't travel very far or very quickly without paved roads or traffic laws. This book relates the history of the car's impact on the physical environment of England from its early beginnings to the modern motorway network.

Offers a fresh consideration of the image of the sea in British visual culture during a critical period for both the rise of the visual arts in Britain and the expansion of the nation's imperial power. This work begins in the year 1768, which marks the foundation of the Royal Academy and the launch of Captain Cook's first circumnavigation.

Recounts the extensive building programme that took place at Canterbury Cathedral Priory, England, from 1153 to 1167, during the time when Thomas Becket served as Royal Chancellor and then as archbishop of Canterbury. This title also sheds fresh light on the social and cultural history of the mid-12th century.

Samuel Palmer (1805–1881) was one of the leading British landscape painters of the 19th century. Inspired by his mentor, the artist and poet William Blake, Palmer brought a new spiritual intensity to his interpretation of nature, producing works of unprecedented boldness and fervency. Pre-eminent scholar William Vaughan—who organized the Palmer retrospective at the British Museum and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2005—draws on unpublished diaries and letters, offering a fresh interpretation of one of the most attractive and sympathetic, yet idiosyncratic, figures of the 19th century. Far from being a recluse, as he is often presented, Palmer was actively engaged in Victorian cultural life and sought to exert a moral power through his artwork. Beautifully illustrated with Palmer's visionary and enchanted landscapes, the book contains rich studies of his work, influences, and resources. Vaughan also shows how later, enthralled by the Pre-Raphaelite movement, Palmer manipulated his own artistic image to harmonize with it. Little appreciated in his lifetime, Palmer is now hailed as a precursor of modernism in the 20th century.Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

This innovative history of British art museums begins in the early 19th century. The National Gallery and the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum) in London may have been at the center of activity, but museums in cities such as Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, and Nottingham were immensely popular and attracted enthusiastic audiences. The People’s Galleries traces the rise of art museums in Britain through World War I, focusing on the phenomenon of municipal galleries. This richly illustrated book argues that these regional museums represented a new type of institution: an art gallery for a working-class audience, appropriate for the rapidly expanding cities and shaped by liberal ideals. As their broad appeal weakened with the new century, they adapted and became more conventional. Using a wide range of sources, the book studies the patrons and the publics, the collecting policies, the temporary exhibitions, and the architecture of these institutions, as well as the complex range of reasons for their foundation.Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

In the late 18th century, as a wave of English nationalism swept the country, the printseller John Boydell set out to create an ambitious exhibition space, one devoted to promoting and fostering a distinctly English style of history painting. This book explores the responses of key artists of the period to Boydell's venture.

Explores the print culture of 18th-century London, focusing on the correspondences between images and consumer objects. In this text, the author considers such themes as the display of objects in still lifes and markets, the connoisseur's fetishistic gaze, and the fusion of body and ornament in satires of fashion.

Art schools, workshops and associations helped shape the Arts and Crafts style, as did individuals such as Ann Macbeth, Robert Lorimer, and James Cromar Watt. Together, these architects, artists and designers contributed to the expansion and evolution of the movement both within and beyond Scotland's borders. This book chronicles this movement.

A jewel of the University of Oxford, the Sheldonian Theatre stands out among the groundbreaking designs by the great British architect Sir Christopher Wren. Published to coincide with the 350th anniversary of the building's construction, this book takes a fresh look at the historical influences that shaped the Sheldonian's development.

The City of London is a jurisdiction whose relationship with the English monarchy has sometimes been turbulent. This book explores how architecture was used to renew and redefine a relationship essential to both parties in the wake of two momentous events: the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, and the Great Fire six years later.

The idea of a "Greater London" emerged in the 18th century with the expansion of the city's suburbs. In this book, the author traces this growth back to the 17th century, when domestic retreats were established in outlying areas. It shows London as the forerunner of the complex, multifaceted modern cities of today.

A catalogue that presents 135 paintings - works by artists from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. It includes portraits from the famed War Gallery created by English painter George Dawe, who was awarded a prestigious commission to produce more than 300 images of Russian generals for the Gallery of 1812 in the historic Winter Palace.

The print repertoire of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England has been neglected historically. This book provides an iconographic survey of the single-sheet prints produced in Britain during the early modern era and reveals significant discoveries from this visual storehouse.

Discusses social structure and the way of life behind Elizabethan and Jacobean architecture, the ferment of excitement aroused in English patrons and craftsmen as they learnt about the classic Five Orders and the buildings of Ancient Rome from publications and engravings, and architectural drawings which survive from the period.

Only twenty-five at the time of his death in 1828, young Richard Parkes Bonington nevertheless was a seminal figure in the development of modernism in nineteenth-century French painting. This book sets Bonington's achievement in the context of the intellectual, social, and artistic ferment of high romanticism in Paris and London.

A survey of one of the most intriguing periods of British art - the radically innovative decade of the 1860s. It explores developments in English painting of this period, focusing on the early work of Edward Burne-Jones, Frederic Leighton, Albert Moore, Edward Poynter, Simeon Solomon, and James McNeill Whistler.

In "Mother Stone "Anne" "Middleton Wagner looks anew at the carvings of the first generation of British modernists, a group centered around Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, and Jacob Epstein. Wagner probes the work of these sculptors, discusses their shared avant-garde materialism, and identifies a common theme that runs through their work and that of other artists of the period: maternity.Why were artists for three turbulent decades after the First World War seemingly preoccupied with representations of pregnant women and the mother and child? Why was this the great new subject, especially for sculpture? Why was the imagery of bodily reproduction at the core of the effort to revitalize what in Britain had become a somnolent art? Wagner finds the answers to these questions at the intersection between the politics of maternity and sculptural innovation. She situates British sculpture fully within the new reality of "bio-power"--the realm of Marie Stopes, "Brave New World,"" "and Melanie Klein. And in a series of brilliant studies of key works, she offers a radical rereading of this sculpture's main concerns and formal language.

Following in the methodological footsteps of his prize-winning "Sir Joshua Reynolds: The Painter in Society," " "Richard Wendorf's new book on British art in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is an experiment in cultural history, combining the analysis of specific artistic objects with an exploration of the cultural conditions in which they were created.Themes include an investigation of what happens when a painter dies, the role of writing around and within visual objects, and the nature of evidence in art history. Extended interpretations of some of the most iconic images in British art, including Constable's "Cenotaph," " "Raeburn's "Skating Minister, "Stubbs's "Haymakers and Reapers," and Rossetti's "Prosperpine," "Venus Verticordia," " "and "Blessed Damosel," are part of a broader investigation of the ways in which we practice art history today.