Reframed: The Woman in the Window is the first exhibition to explore the enigmatic motif of the ‘woman in the window’. Featuring artworks from ancient civilisations to present day, the exhibition brings together over 50 works by artists including Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, David Hockney, Louise Bourgeois, Cindy Sherman, Wolfgang Tillmans and […]
This new display celebrates the return of Thomas Gainsborough’s ‘The Pink Boy’ (1782), one of Waddesdon’s most popular paintings, after being cleaned and conserved, a process that has revealed much about the painting’s creation. From Wed 25 May, a special display will reveal it anew, freed from a discoloured varnish, alongside three other Waddesdon Gainsboroughs that […]
This focused exhibition, developed in partnership with the National Portrait Gallery and National Museums Liverpool, includes some of the most iconic images in British painting, including the ‘Darnley’ and ‘Armada’ portraits of Elizabeth I. Several of the works have never been shown outside London, including a portrait of Jane Seymour after Hans Holbein the Younger […]
This resource identifies all those men and women who have been identified as painters of any sort working in England, Wales, Scotland or Ireland between the years 1500 and 1640. It includes those who were native to the British Isles and also those strangers who came and worked there at any time during this era. […]
After exactly 100 years, this exhibition reunites ‘The Blue Boy’ with the British public and with the paintings that inspired it. ‘The Blue Boy’ represents the best of 18th-century British art. It is Gainsborough’s eloquent response to the legacy of Van Dyck and grand manner portraiture. It is a proud demonstration by Gainsborough of what […]
A talk by Professor Karen Hearn at Queen’s House, Royal Museums Greenwich More portraits survive of Lucy Harington Russell, 3rd Countess of Bedford (1580-1627) than of any other non-royal Jacobean woman. A Lady of the Bedchamber to James I’s queen, Anna of Denmark, the charismatic Lucy performed in elite Court entertainments and was a patron […]
Recording now available: University of Hertfordshire Chancellor’s Lecture 2021 Professor Karen Hearn FSA explores the rare 16th century ‘pregnancy portrait’ of Mildred Cooke, wife of Sir William Cecil, later Lord Burghley. The painting of Mildred Cooke is one of the earliest examples of an English ‘pregnancy portrait’. This type of painting was rare at the […]
Coronavirus: a noun familiar to everyone today, but perhaps lesser known before the pandemic, unless you work in the field of science or medicine. COVID-19, or its longer name of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has dramatically changed society and will undoubtedly be taught in history lessons in the future. As we look […]
Established in 2012, the Centre is an interdisciplinary group based in Birkbeck’s School of Arts, led by Dr Patrizia Di Bello and Professor Steve Edwards. We aim to facilitate, exchange and showcase new and existing research on photography’s history and theory, both at Birkbeck and in the wider photographic and academic community. Please contact Alexandra […]
In January this year, the AGO acquired an exciting new painting. Made from oil on canvas in the second half of the 1700s, the portrait shows a young woman of colour standing outdoors presenting an orange blossom in her right hand. This new acquisition is an exceptionally rare portrait of an individual woman of colour […]
