Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales (1796-1817) by Samuel Percy, coloured wax relief, 1814 © National Portrait Gallery, London

Reviews

Read and contribute reviews on portrait-relevant publications, exhibitions, learning and participation programmes, and seminars

Henry Miller, ‘Portraiture, caricature and visual culture in Britain, c.1830–80’ reviewed by Pat Hardy, Curator of Paintings, Prints and Drawings, Museum of London

The analysis of nineteenth-century political caricature has often been overlooked in favour of the colourful anarchism of James Gillray, Isaac Cruikshank or Thomas Rowlandson of the previous century, as illustrated in the British Museum’s exhibition ‘Bonaparte and the British; prints and propaganda in the age of Napoleon’. But the relative lack of salacious detail in […]

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‘Fred A. Farrell – Glasgow’s War Artist’ exhibition and catalogue review by Stacey Clapperton, History of Art PhD candidate, University of Glasgow

The WWI Centenary is now underway and over the next four years Britain’s museums and art galleries will be striving to make their contributions known. ‘Fred A. Farrell – Glasgow’s War Artist’ marks Glasgow’s first contribution to the centenary. The aim of the exhibition and its accompanying catalogue is to rediscover and reconsider one of […]

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Donna Gustafson & Susan Sidlauskas, ‘Striking Resemblance: The Changing Art of Portraiture’ reviewed by Ulrike Smalley Creative Producer, Ffotogallery

This work is part of a collaboration between the Zimmerli Art Museum and the Department of Art History at Rutgers University, which encompassed two multifaceted academic projects and resulted in an exhibition and this accompanying publication drawing from the Zimmerli Museum’s collection, enhanced by a significant number of loans. The authors of Striking Resemblance set […]

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Elizabeth Eger (ed.), ‘Bluestockings Displayed: Portraiture, Performance and Patronage, 1730-1830’ by Dr Ruth Larsen, University of Derby

The excellent Brilliant Women exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in 2008 and the associated conference, where the majority of the essays within this book were first presented, tried to challenge the traditional dour image of bluestocking women. Instead they highlighted the vitality of the women, their ideas, and their associated visual and material cultures. […]

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Gill Perry et al (eds), ‘Placing Faces: the portrait and the English country house in the long eighteenth century’ by Stephen Ponder, Curator, National Trust South West Region

As a National Trust curator for country houses with 18th century portraits in their collections, I hoped this book would increase my understanding of how portraits were commissioned and displayed and their meanings understood. It did. But despite the title, this is not a definitive overview of the subject. It is a series of essays […]

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Allan Ramsay: Portraits of the Enlightenment exhibition, reviewed by Nel Whiting

Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow, until 5 January 2014 Organised to mark the tercentenary of Allan Ramsay’s (1713 – 1784) birth, this exhibition takes the opportunity of ‘Redefining Ramsay’s Reputation’, as the heading of the introductory text on the gallery wall makes explicit. The exhibition aims to reclaim Ramsay from the position of sometimes […]

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Queries & Reviews

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