Venue: The Holburne Museum, Bath William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), playwright and novelist, began collecting paintings of actors in the 1910s. He built a sizeable and important collection of theatrical portraits, which he displayed in his villa in the south of France. The collection remained together throughout the Second World War, despite Maugham himself having to […]
Annual Conference of the Dutch-Belgian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Deadline for submissions: 15 May 2018 Conference: March 2019 This conference seeks to address the various modes and strategies through which female intellectuals (authors, scientists, educators, and others) sought to negotiate and legitimize their authority in Early Modern and Enlightenment Europe (1600-1800). The 17th and 18th […]
Understanding British Portraits events never disappoint. They are carefully programmed allowing for a wide breadth of interest and professional focus. I always gain great inspiration from these sessions and translate this directly into my efforts at Ham House. A few years ago, I worked collaboratively with volunteers to develop and deliver a Portrait Tour that […]
I attended the Decoding the domestic interior in British portraits seminar at the Geffrye Museum, ostensibly in my current role as Assistant Curator of Furniture, Textiles and Fashion at the Victoria & Albert Museum – these of course all being types of objects commonly found within portraits. Not being a portrait specialist nor someone focused solely […]
Venue: National Portrait Gallery, King Edward Terrace, Parkes, Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia Until Sunday 22 October 2017 This is the first exhibition to showcase the compelling watercolour images of English street people made by the itinerant English painter John Dempsey throughout the first half of the nineteenth century. Featuring 52 rarely-seen portraits, the exhibition profiles […]
At the end of June, a colleague and I, attended the Understanding British Portraits seminar at the Geffrye Museum. We attended as part of a newly formed specialists’ records team here at The National Archives, looking specifically at our Design, Photographs and Art Collections. As the archive of central government, the records we hold cover […]
My application for my Understanding British Portraits Fellowship began with a simple question, ‘who are you?‘, which is what I thought the moment I saw the portrait of a young girl staring out so boldly from the canvas. Little did I know what an amazing person I had come across. The portrait of The Honourable […]
I attended this seminar at the National Portrait Gallery, keen to develop our work with portraits at the Victoria Art Gallery in Bath. Portraits are one of our most popular subjects with schools and nurseries. I was also looking forward to seeing more of the work of Howard Hodgkin the National Portrait Gallery exhibition: Howard […]
During the recent Understanding British Portraits Study Day at Weston Park, we were expertly guided through the collection by Gareth Williams, Curator & Head of Learning, and Sally Goodsir, who has undertaken a thorough analysis of the provenance and hang of the pictures. Working on a similar project at Woburn Abbey, it was exciting to […]
Press release announcement from The Grosvenor Museum, Chester, 21 April 2017: A glamorous portrait of one of Cheshire’s most interesting 20th-century aristocrats has gone on display at Chester’s Grosvenor Museum. The portrait of Sybil, Countess of Rocksavage, later Marchioness of Cholmondeley, was painted by Charles Sims in 1922. The painting was purchased with support from […]
