Gallery Stroll

GALLERY ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, Oxford No Day Without a Une: The Royal Society ofPainter-Printmakers 1880-1999 • 31 August - 31 October 1999 · The Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, founded in 1880, has been central to the making of artists' original prints in Britain ever since. This exhibition is drawn from the coUection of Diploma woks given to the Society by printmakers on election which is on long-term deposit in the Ashmolean Print Room. The catalogue, with a history of the Society by Martin Hopkinson has been sponsored by the Paul MeUon Centre for Studies in British Art BRITISH MUSEUM, London ***************** Oddities Under Heaven: The Popular Print in England 1550-1850 • 7 May - 30 August 1999 · Room 28 The Popular Print in England includes prints produced from the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth century, but not the sort that usuaUy appeared in scholarly coUections. These were ephemera, sold cheaply on the streets and pasted on to cottage and tavern walls, produced in such huge numbers that few people bothered to preserve them. One of those who did coUect them was Hans Sloane, and his prints of Siamese twins bom in Oxfordshire in 1552 and monstrous piglets from Germany are among the highUghts of the exhibition. The subjects of these prints are those of today's tabloid newspapers: crime, royalty, politics, war, sex and comedy. Scenes of torture and death are presented with a moral gloss; religion is an excuse for prejudice; politicians accuse each other of every crime in the book; women are shrews who cuckold their husbands; men spend their time drinking and dreaming of the day the world wiU tum upside down; Continentals are figures of fun or menace: foreigners from more distant lands are curiosities in the same way as people of freakish physique. The Popular Print In England is not an exhibition for the politicaUy correct GaUery StroU79 THE NATIONAL GALLERY, London *********************** Gallery Acquires Wornum Papers The National GaUery has recently acquired the notes, papers, manuscripts and annotated publications of Ralph Nicholson Womum (Keeper and Secretary of the National GaUery 1854-7) for its Archive. Wornum, a noted art critic, served under three distinguished directors of the GaUery (Sir Charles Eastlake, Sir WiUiam BoxaU and Sir Frederic Burton) and was chiefly instrumental in getting the Turner coUection, which was banished first to Marlborough House and then to South Kensington, restored to the National GaUery. The papers include both Wornum's personal and professional correspondence as weU as ledgers, journals and travel accounts, and form one of the most important acquisitions ever for the Archive. SCOTTISH NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, Edinburgh *********************************** Sir Walter Scott and the Creation ofScotland •7 May -17 October 1999· Through his novels and poems Sir Walter Scott created a particular vision of his native land, its peoples and their coUective past The immense popularity of his work over many generations ensured that for millions of readers Scotland became, in the word of one of his contemporaries, 'Scott-land'. Scott's ideas continue to influence how Scots see themselves and how they are perceived by the wider world. This exhibition explores Scott's imaginative reconstruction of cultural identity through his own writing and the works of those who found in him inspiration for their own visions of Scotland. The exhibition's guest curator, Dr. Jeanne Cannizzo, explores her subject through a series of interlinked themes which begin with Scott's own transformation into a living myth. Further sections explore his romantic use of landscape and his distinctive and ultimately optimistic reading of Scotland's past Actual men and women, historical or contemporary, such as Mary, Queen of Scots and George IV, are utiUzed by Scott to people his creation, whilst his fictional characters acquire, not least through their impact upon other artists, writers and musicians, a resonant life of their own. The story is told through paintings, drawings and watercolors, prints and photographs, playbills and theatre sets, books and manuscripts. TATE GALLERY, London **************** Turner on the Seine •29 June -3 October 1999· CIorcGallery Parisians on holiday, the bustling quaysides of Channel ports, light dancing across the surface of the great facade of Rouen Cathedral. Such subjects are now more usually associated with the impressionist painters of...