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  • Art in the Age of SteamWalker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 18 April–10 August 2008
  • Rowan Julie Brown (bio)

Art in the Age of Steam1 at the Walker Gallery in Liverpool offered an appealing selection of artistic responses to the subject of railways. The title, amended for the purposes of the catalog to The Railway: Art in the Age of Steam,2 hinted at the exhibition’s content—the subject of steam travel since its inception in 1804 as perceived by a chronology of art historical movements. The exhibition brought together a variety of works, some included for the skill and fame of their creators and some elevated to gallery status because their subjects matched the exhibition’s theme. The dual appeal of the show—of interest to historians of technology and art historians alike—drew massive audiences, and it raised some interesting issues regarding exhibition content and selection, namely: the manner in which conservation challenges can be creatively solved; the compromises involved in assembling an international touring exhibition;3 the complexities of presenting aspects of an industrialized and globalized society through painted depictions; and the challenges associated with portraying a subject spanning two centuries in a concise narrative framework. These dichotomies led [End Page 418] to an exhibition that offered a variety of thought-provoking insights into the steam age and explored the positive and negative aspects of railroads as symbols of modernity (fig. 1).


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Fig. 1.

The entry to the exhibition. (Source: National Museums Liverpool, reproduced with permission.)

The introduction responded to some of these challenges with gusto. J. M. W. Turner’s Rain, Steam and Speed—the Great Western Railway (1844), arguably the most powerful contemporary depiction of the early steam era, was deemed too fragile to travel to Liverpool for the show. The curatorial team creatively solved this problem by positioning a flat-screen television with a live link to the painting displayed in the National Gallery, London, adjacent to the introductory text. This set the tone for the show by immediately and eloquently stating the perceived value of railway art as comparable to other masterpieces. It also allowed visitors to see London audiences simultaneously viewing the painting, as well as permitting selection and magnification of detail in support of the interpretation. This novel approach, I am sure, will be replicated in many exhibitions to come.

As hinted above, both the “art” and “steam” in the exhibition’s title proved slightly nebulous. The exhibition was restricted to the subject of railways, and “art” was defined predominantly as painting, with some drawings, photographs, poems, and film clips in support. In contrast, the accompanying catalog—more accurately described as an “associated publication”— offered several literary perspectives on the subject.4 The gallery [End Page 419] showcased 117 oils, works on paper, and photographs arranged into six sections. These were complemented by individual object labels and large-scale quotes offering a mix of railway chronology and art-historical context. Though interpreting the subject in two dimensions was problematic for those acquainted with the multisensory experience of railway journeys, the atmospheric qualities of steam-powered travel were at times beautifully evoked by the works of artists such as Claude Monet. The inclusion of popular and documentary film added significantly to the theme’s interpretation, however, the lack of sculpture was disappointing.5

One of the exhibition’s major strengths was the quality and diversity of artwork on display. As mentioned in the catalog introduction, the exhibition aimed to “show the response of the best artists to the railways” and was self-consciously created with Liverpool’s “Capital of Culture” status in mind.6 Appropriately, Liverpool has a significant place in railway history as one of the sites on the route of Britain’s earliest public railway, the Liverpool and Manchester, which opened in 1830. The curators succeeded in their mission to juxtapose the work of the most celebrated nineteenth- and twentieth-century artists, including Vincent van Gogh, Honoré Daumier, Edouard Manet, Wassily Kandinsky, and Giorgio de Chirico. It was almost as though the perceived value of railways as icons of modernity was cemented by the fact that celebrated artists chose to record...

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