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GALLERY ? ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, Oxford ********************** L.N. Cottingham (1787-1847) • 21 April 1998 - 21 June 1998 · Until now there has been no proper assessment of Cottingham, who paved the way for the Gothic Revival — in advance of his better known allies Pugin and Ruskin — and who was considered by his contemporaries to be the leading Medievalist architect of the day. He set new standards of informal and sensitive restoration practice, evidenced by his restoration work at Rochester and Hereford Cathedrals and Magdalen College Chapel (1829-35) where the very excellence of his work tends to disguise his additions. The exhibition brings together drawings, watercolors, furniture, prints and books, representing the range of a lifetime's work. Illustrators of the 186Os • 21 April 1998 - 21 June 1998 · Forrest Reid (1875-1947) — novelist, critic, autobiographer and collector — lived throughout his life in suburban Belfast. This is the first public exhibition of Reid's collection of Victorian book and periodical illustrations, on which he largely based his book Illustrators of the Sixties (1928) and which he donated to the Ashmolean in 1946. TATE GALLERY, London ***************** Moonlight and Firelight: Watercolors from the Turner Bequest • 6 July 1998 - 1 November 1998 · Turner is most often associated with effects of dazzling sunlight, but he was just as interested in depicting the cooler, more mysterious hues of moonlight. This was a preoccupation that began with his first exhibited oil painting Fishermen at Sea, and was sustained right up to the atmospheric late watercolors of Venice and Switzerland. In spite of the importance of this aspect of Turner's work, this special exhibition is the first to examine the theme in detail. The selection includes landscapes from many of Turner's European tours, vignette illustrations and a group of interiors, most notably some of the firelit scenes made at Petworth House. Turner's interest in firelight found its most perfect Gallery Stroll101 form in the watercolors recording the dramatic burning of the Houses of Parliament in 1834, which have only rarely been exhibited at the Tate. VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, London *************************** The Power ofthe Poster • 2 April 1998 - 26 July 1998 · Why is the poster such a powerful medium of publicity and persuasion? What are the special qualities that have enabled it to survive and flourish over the course of the past century? These questions are addressed by a new V & A exhibition, The Power of the Poster, which provides a welcome opportunity to see the magnificent range and scale of the V & A's poster collection — these number more than 10,000 in the Department of Prints, Drawings and Paintings alone. The Power of the Poster presents a fascinating record of social and political history as well as of the evolution of this particular form of graphic design. The posters are grouped into three broad categories according to what they are publicizing or selling. Pleasure and Leisure looks at posters for performance and entertainment — from the circus and music-hall, through ballet and opera to rock music and sport. It includes famous designs by Toulouse-Lautrec, Steinlen and Mucha, which are highly evocative of the period. Protest and Propaganda examines how posters have presented social issues, war, revolution and politics. Four of the posters are studied in depth: Frank Brangwyn's Put Strength into the Final Blow (1918), Fougasse's Careless Talk Costs Lives (1940), Larry Dunst's anti-Vietnam war / Want Out (1971), and Peter Pocs's 56.10.23 (1989) celebrating the ultimate success of the 1956 AntiCommunist Revolution. Commerce and Communication surveys posters for products and services in the context of commercial advertising, from the late 19th century 'artistic' poster and the role then played by printers through to the rise of the advertising agency (with campaigns for Guinness, Bovril, Rowntree's Cocoa and others). Aubrey Beardsley: A Shortlived Artistic Genius • 8 October 1988 - 10 January 1999 · A definitive exhibition to mark the centenary of the early death of the artist Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898) opens at the V & A in October following a first showing in Japan. More than 200 examples of Beardsley's genius as an illustrator and designer of books and posters will be set against the backdrop of the vibrant artistic and literary life of London...

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